


Hostile Takeovers

by josephina_x



Series: Fate + Circumstance != Destiny [2]
Category: Smallville, Smallville Season 11 (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 23,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because if there's one thing a Lex is good at handling, it's...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello, Zatanna!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Zatanna walked into the Young Justice mountain complex to dead silence.

"Hello?" she called nervously, and actually heard an echo.

She walked through the corridors, and finally came into the common room.

The lights were all dimmed throughout the complex, except for the kitchen, which was brightly-lit, beams spilling out of the doorways.

She walked in and saw a note on the counter.

"Hey Z-- Come up to the 'Tower when you get in! --Wally" it read.

She frowned, then bit her lip and jogged back to the Zeta-beam transporter.

She tried dialing in the Watchtower and her eyes grew wide as it granted her access and activated.

She walked in.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Zee! --you made it!" Wally greeted her in a blur about two seconds after she landed. "Come on and grab some dinner! Lex is like, the best cook, I swear!"

"Lex?" she asked. "Like... Lex _Luthor?_ "

"I know, I know, I thought so, too, at first -- but he's from a different Earth -- yeah, apparently there's more than one? Robin and Kaldur can explain -- and this one's actually kind of cool. --And can bake!"

"Okay..." she said, rubbing at her eyes. She'd been practicing a lot of magic that day and she suddenly realized that she'd forgotten to remove the helper spell. Every sigil spelled into the Watchtower to help with the mystical side of the defenses was swimming into view in hard focus. Seeing that much permanent magic-weaving embedded into the walls in front of her eyes, after all the near-overexertion she'd put herself through earlier, was starting to give her a headache.

She sighed and started to whisper the counterspell when Wally dragged her into the kitchen and she came to a complete halt, staring in shock.

"Wh--wh-what the _hell_ is _that?!?_ " she squeaked, pulling away from Wally, pointing at the thing in front of her.

"Who, Lex?" Wally said.

"Hm?" it said.

"Eep!" _It talks!_ She bolted for the doorway and turned the corner so hard she almost slipped and fell.

...When it didn't chase her immediately, curiosity got the better of her and she peeked back around the doorway slightly.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. ...Was it something I said?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex blinked up at the timid-looking black-haired girl peeking around the doorway.

"Was it something I said?" he asked the room in general.

"Why are you hiding like that!!!" she said, garnering no few similarly confused looks from the rest of the Young Justice crew.

Lex frowned slightly at her as he set down the salad bowl on the table. "I'm not hiding; you are."

"That's not what I mea--!! oh," he heard, as he saw her rub her eyes and poke her head around the corner a little more.

"You shouldn't channel that much energy from weird things like that; you'll mess yourself up!" she said accusingly.

Lex blinked at her.

"Aren't you a normal human?" Wally asked around a mouthful of spaghetti.

"Well, yes, for the most part. --At least, I thought so..." Lex replied, feeling a little disconcerted.

"Turn it down!" the girl called from the doorway.

"Turn _what_ down?" Lex asked.

"The things in your hands."

Lex frowned at her, then glanced down.

" _What_ things in my hands?" he asked, holding them up for her perusal.

"Gah!!" She ducked around the corner again.

Lex blinked.

He stared at his hands, and then looked at the rest of the teenagers surrounding the table.

He got a few inquisitive gazes, two shrugs, and a few blinks, blank looks, and stares. So it really _wasn't_ just him.

"...Maybe it's a weird magic thing?" Wally said.

"Someone magicked my hands?" Lex murmured, feeling a little worried as he flexed his fingers. He'd thought the lot of the them -- the League -- had messed with just his _head_ before, not any other parts of him, not that he was all that thrilled about that. Tess' removal and a feeling of welcome mental quiet aside, he was no longer able to keep tabs on her to keep her in line and he'd had a bunch of righteous idiots screwing around in his brain to the point that it had nearly killed him. _Permanently_ dead, that is -- apparently he'd gone brain- and body-dead on the table for a significant period of time. But if they'd done more to him than just mess with his brain -- if they had done something to his body in general, as well...

"Is is bad?" he asked the girl with a raised eyebrow, who he assumed was the 'Zatanna' that Miss Martian had referred to earlier, looking up at her again.

"...Wait, you don't know what I'm talking about?" she said, poking her head around the corner again.

"I don't think so," Lex said slowly. "I don't think I'm seeing whatever you're seeing, certainly."

"Hold on," he heard, and a muttered echoing phrase.

"Nnn, ok -- now I shouldn't have to squint," Zatanna said, as she came around the corner and winced again. "Geez, they're still pretty bad; I can't believe I can see them that brightly without even _trying_ to look," she added, approaching him slowly.

Lex glanced over at Captain Marvel.

"I don't usually see magic or mystical stuff all that well unless it's stuff that's visible to everybody else; I don't really do spells," he said. "Sorry."

Lex tilted his head at him, then dropped his shoulders in a half-shrug.

Then he turned back to Zatanna and said, "So, what exactly do you see?" holding his hands out, palms up.

Zatanna slowly walked over, then looked down at them and winced as her eyes started to water.

"Are you all right?" Robin asked, frowning.

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head and taking a step backwards. "Cigam sesnes mid niaga!" she said in that odd echoing tone, flicking her fingers at her own eyes, and Lex realized that she was repeating yet again what she'd said earlier.

"What are the blue flashes for?" Lex asked curiously, seeing them settle in place, flickering in and out in a light sparkling film that wrapped partially around her head, ike a visor across her eyes.

"Toning down what I can see; they're kind of like mystical sunglasses," Zatanna said absently as she frowned at his outstretched palms again. Kaldur-ahm seemed to become interested for some reason, looking up at them at that.

"Hm," Lex said. When Zatanna finaly pulled away, blinking and frowning a little more, Lex asked, "Did you get a good look at...?" He flicked his fingers upwards.

Zatanna nodded. "I didn't really recognize them, though -- they're not any of the normal sigils I'm used to seeing." Then she frowned. "Well, the one did look familiar..." It seemed to be nagging at her.

"I _am_ from a different earth; perhaps they're slightly different where I'm from. Would you mind sketching it down for me?" Lex asked her, wanting to know what he was dealing with.

"...Sure?" Zatanna said.

Lex surmised that she must have been expecting pencil and paper, because she giggled when Lex turned back and set down in front of her two clean plates and a squeeze-bottle of mustard.

She still gamely went at it though, and a half-minute later she straightened, looked over what she'd drawn, stared, did a slow blink, then said -- "Oh!" in surprise.

"Geez, Z-- you didn't recognize that one?" he heard Flash say.

"Oh, bite me, Wally!" she returned caustically. "I've been staring at dusty four-hundred-year-old spellbooks for the last fourteen hours, memorizing spellcasting symbols, not--!" She let up on him after Artemis smacked him upside the head for her.

Lex turned back from the stove with the next batch of pasta and set it down on the table, leaning over to look at the mustard-drawn pictures on the plates himself.

When he caught sight of the symbols she'd drawn, he froze.

"...Lex?" he heard Conner ask.

Lex licked his lips and swallowed hard despite a suddenly-dry mouth. "...I honestly had not expected to recognize them," he said slowly.

He stared down at the sigils for fire-and-light and hope-and-rebirth, etched out in yellow condiments -- the bounded infinity, and... a symbol that even this group would recognize.

His gaze slid over to Conner's t-shirt, upon which an identical symbol in red was emblazoned.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Symbols Mean Things

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was working his way through his own plate of food, and trying not to think too hard on the implications of what this _branding_ of his Frankenstein's-monster-amalgamation-of-clone-parts-body might mean.

...Especially the fact that it was on _both_ of his hands. His right hand he was fairly certain was his original, from before, but his left? ...And from the young magician's reaction, he had the sinking feeling that these _things_ , whatever they were -- plural -- had _infected_ his entire being -- else the girl would not have in her confusion confused him with some inhuman _thing_.

He was determined, however, not to think about any of this in too much detail until he was alone and in a room where it would be socially acceptible to start throwing things. So, on that depressing note, he more-or-less ignored the intermittent stares directed at him, and the conversation flowing about him, that had soon enough been taken up by the entire group. He pretended he wasn't there, much as they were.

"Don't you care at all?" Rocket blurted out at him directly, and everyone else went suddenly silent.

Lex gave a mental sigh and straightened slightly. "Of course I do," he replied.

"Then why aren't you saying anything?!" she demanded.

"What is there, do you think, that remains to be said, after everything you all have...?" he waved a hand vaguely and trailed off. "Do you believe I have anything left to contribute?" Lex answered cooly, looking across the table at her.

That garnered him no few shocked looks.

Lex turned his attention back to his salad.

"Lex," Conner said quietly, "What do you know about them?"

 _Damnit._ Lex set him fork down and ran a hand over his head, no longer hungry.

"...You knew about them?" Miss Martian said, sounding shocked. "But you said--"

"Hindsight is 20-20," Lex said coldly, shoving his seat back from the table and fully intending to get up and leave the lot of them--

"Lex, please," Conner said, and Lex made the mistake of glancing over at him.

 _Damn it!_ He only paused for a moment, torn between leaving anyway and... not. He slowly settled back into his seat and put his elbows on the table. He held his head in his hands, ignoring decorum entirely.

"I don't have any absolute knowledge of them," Lex said, eyes on the floor. "Only mere conjecture and guesswork, if that."

"We would appreciate your sharing of any knowledge you have with us," he heard Kaldur'ahm state without censure.

Anger flared.

Lex fought to keep a grimace off his face. He closed his eyes.

"Would you _really?_ " Lex said lightly, rubbing at his temples. After all, for the last twelve minutes they'd been rudely talking about him over his head, as though he were a piece of inanimate furniture with nothing significant or meaningful to add and no stake in the conversation, hadn't they?

Silence.

 _Goddamn it, these **children** \--!!_ How dare they? Had they no sense?!?

Lex slowly brought his head up.

He had the attention of the full group.

Some were looking at him with accusation, others shock and uncertainty, still others with patience, and one or two with something approaching understanding.

None of them were looking at him with anything like judgment or censure.

It was patently, painfully obvious that _none_ of them expected him to lie to them.

Lex suddenly felt very old.

_How could they trust...?_

He let his head drop again, let his arms fall to cross each other on the table with a deep sigh.

He stared down at nothing.

Still, silence. Waiting.

He closed his eyes again, to shutter-in the severe mental pain their expectations were causing him.

It had been amusing before, on the ground, when they had been acting in front of the cameras. Fun, almost, to play off of them. It was no longer.

The idea that these _children_ simply _were_ **exactly** as they seemed, that they acted this way _all the time..._

It... _hurt_.

He said, "The marks are Kryptonian. The symbol on my left hand, which looks like a framed numeral eight, is the bounded infinity. It is the sigil for fire, and most likely came from exposure to a Kryptonian artifact called the Crystal of Fire, one of the three Stones of Power. That particular crystal was associated with fire, healing, and light -- both creation and destruction." He took a shallow breath before continuing. "The symbol on my right hand, which looks like a framed roman letter 'S', is no doubt familiar to you all. It is a sigil representing hope when point-down, and rebirth point-up. I don't know of the characteristics specifically associated with it, except that it has something to do with life, death, and 'the in-between', whatever that means." He muttered the last.

Lex clenched his jaw, then added. "Both are sigils associated with one particular ruling house on Krypton -- the El family. Those 'of the stars'," he ended.

He breathed out, and had no great compulsion to open his eyes or look up.

"Do you know how you... might have been exposed to something that marked you with the second sigil?" Kaldur asked him.

Lex's lips thinned. "No. But I suspect it may have something to do with the short time while I was possessed by a sadistic, alien ghost -- a Kryptonian one -- and how someone managed to rid me of it without killing me."

And that was about the extent of the information he had read from his own coded journals that had seemed in any way relevant.

"... _That's_ what you call 'conjecture and guesswork'?" he heard Wally say, shocked.

"All of that information came from one source, which may have been tampered with in the interim between when it was written and when I rediscovered it. I had no way to tell one way or the other, and I never found first-hand, corroborating evidence from a verified source to back it up," Lex informed them. "So, no."

Wally let out what sounded like a choked curse under his breath.

"Well, you're going to need to work at it," Zatanna said shakily. "Because you're not using it very well."

Lex slowly opened his eyes and turned his head back towards her. "What?" he said.

"The power from the healing one is mostly feeding into the rebirth one," the young witch informed him. "And not really well."

Lex paled, then straightened. " _What?_ " he said, going pale. "That can't be possible!"

"Why not?" Rocket asked.

"Because they only meet at the edges -- there's no overlap between those powers or concepts," Lex said grimly.

"They're complementary," Zatanna said uncertainly. "They fit together."

Lex's eyes narrowed. "But they are fully separate, set apart from each other. They always have been. They don't _share_ \--"

"Great powers are known to have some commonality along their boundaries," Kaldur'ahm interjected. "There is a... 'grey area'."

"Great _what--?!?_ " Lex said, turning to look at Kaldur'ahm incredulously and leaning back in his chair.

"What Zatanna sees, I can also, to a much lesser degree," Kaldur told him. "...when I concentrate and look for it." Elbows on the table, he folded his hands in front of his face and stared out at Lex over them. "I have been trained somewhat in the mystic arts." He was frowned at. "Your power is not small. I would not see it at all, otherwise."

"You _must_ be joking," Lex said flatly, suddenly feeling defensive. _I can't even feel it--!_

"I'm-- _we're_ just telling you what we see," Zatanna said nervously, starting to tug at her hair as she continued to stare at him. Her eyes widened, looking for the world like she was watching a train wreck in slow-motion and couldn't, didn't _dare_ look away...

Lex stared right back for a few silent moments, before snapping at her, "What's wrong?" in a demanding tone, about to lose his temper.

"It's... just..." she swallowed nervously. "I'm... getting used to seeing past it now, and... underneath it all..." She gulped again. "It looks like something shredded your soul?" she said in rising tones.

"...What?" Lex breathed out quietly, staring right back at her now, with a feeling of dread pooling in his gut while his mind beat out _zodzodzod_ \--

"And the, uh, shadow-twilight-spewing sigil-thing? On your right hand? Is the only thing holding it together..."

Lex's eyes widened, and he sat very, very still as he felt his heart rate pick up and the blood slowly drain from his face.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yes, I know I'm taking some liberties here. In this series, the symbols on the Crystal of Air and Crystal of Fire are swapped from canon. For Plot Reasons. (Just, uh, go with it.)


	4. Is this what full-blown panic looks like? I can't remember...

~*~*~*~*~*~

_My soul? I have a soul? I-- ...Mine--?_

Lex felt hot. Then cold. Then...

He didn't know what to think.

He honestly did _not_ know what to think.

He almost wished for the ghost of Tess to pop into being right behind his shoulder and say something harsh that he could rail against, fight against, because _that_ was familiar, _that_ he knew how to do--

He... had a soul.

And it was _**shredded**_.

Not a shiny clean and brand-spanking-new, never-been-touched, soul.

Not an absence of a soul, being a monstrous, created being in a monsterously-created body.

A _shredded_ soul.

_**His.** _

_I-- I'm **not** just some clone-amalgamate of Lex Luthor, I **am** \--_

He honestly didn't know whether he ought to be relieved -- _I'm a **real person** , I have a **soul**_ \-- or confused -- _howhow **how** is ths even possible? HOW?_ \-- or furious -- _I died, I'm back, but I'm still not **me** , I can't **remember**_ \-- or scared shitless -- _my soul is **broken** , falling apart at the seams, I'm in danger of losing my **soul** , what happens to **-me-** if what's holding it together falls apart?_ \-- or fall into utter despair -- _would it even matter? would I even notice if it did? I've seen the monstrous, horrific, ... **necessary?** things he-- **I** did, why did I... do I... really deserve everything that... Tess..._ \-- or...

...No, wrong question, and wrong answer.

Clone or not. Original soul or not.

Bottom-line:

What he was?

Was _screwed_.

~*~*~*~*~*~

There was a lot of chatter going on among his team, but Kaldur'ahm's attention was wholly on Lex Luthor.

Mainly because Lex was acting rather oddly to the news he'd just heard.

Lex had been _taken aback_ at the knowledge that he was powerful in some unknown way, one that he had been unaware of. The reaction was not feigned, which implied that this man might be inclined to eschew some sorts of power, rather than relentlessly and unilaterally pursue its attainment in any form. This was nothing like the Luthor he knew.

This Luthor had paled and grown silent at the news of the state of his soul. This was also atypical.

Kaldur had seen people -- like Wally -- confronted with news of souls and other such things beyond science, belonging wholly in the realm of magic and mysticism, or perhaps residing even farther out in the realm of religion and belief. A scientist should have scoffed, or asked many questions, or demanded proof before taking the claim seriously. A man of any religious inclination should have been asking questions as well, but with a great deal more worry about the state of their soul and how they could save it.

Lex seemed to have accepted Zatanna's word as truth without question, quietly digesting it without protest. That was all.

This worried Kaldur. This worried him greatly.

And then there was Lex's earlier reaction to their deliberate lack of censure -- _that_ had been almost painful to watch, but clearly not as painful as it had so obviously been for the man himself. Kaldur could only imagine how much of that behavior might have been the end result of the abuse certainly heaped upon him by the ghost named Tess. Lex had indicated well after the fact that he had been able to hear and see her prior to her removal, without need of a spell, and that she had spent a great deal of his waking hours up and about and as active as he was, sans body of her own. With that vengeful ghost constantly at him, and no memories of a time before her, how many wholly-positive social interactions had he ever had? Any?

Six months of abuse by family, silently taken, and who knew how much of it had been purely verbal. That did things to a person.

...And yet this man seemed functional, and oddly trusting to those who suffered him no ill intent. --And also seemed to know things that perhaps he should not, or did not realize that he should not. What 'remembering nothing' prior to those six months truly entailed seemed decidedly unclear. Could he have had allies to do for him what the G-gnomes had done for Conner, to quickly teach him of the things that were necessary for him to know to survive day-to-day in life? Who had guided his process of relearning and reintegration? There were far more unknowns with him and his mental state than just the most recently-missing three months...

Regardless of the disturbing lack of background information, and no-one to vouch for him in its absence, Kaldur knew that this situation must be handled carefully. The man was obviously dangerous, and had a telling inclination to distrust and malign the League at nearly every opportunity given; yet for whatever reason -- possibly his instant connection with Conner? -- he did not share that same frustration and friction with Kaldur's team.

Kaldur unabashedly wanted to keep it that way. He would much rather have this Lex Luthor working _with_ his team than against them.

And for this, he was truly glad that he'd had a chance to discuss the matter fully with the team via M'gann's telepathy. They had quickly reached a consensus for how they would treat him prior to the commencement of the meal, and that consensus had been: do not engage in suspicion, do not pre-judge; let him talk, and listen to him, and then talk. This was trust-building as least as much as intelligence-gathering, and he doubted that the man would have continued to have been so open and honest with them if he had not been able to steer his team in this regard. In fact, it most likely would have been an utter mess otherwise. However, they had all agreed that they had wanted to find a way for him to safely open up more. So far, it seemed to be working.

...He glanced over at Robin and saw his slight head tilt. Ah. So Dick agreed with him, and not just on it being better to have him in than out. Batman's protege had noted the odd reactions as well.

Lex slowly rose his head again, looking sideways at Zatanna, and as Kaldur noted the suddenly markedly-shrewd look of intelligence in the man's eyes -- as did Robin, who tensed slightly in his peripheral vision -- Kaldur's eyes widened slighly as he remembered one very, very important fact.

Zatanna had only just arrived. She had not been a part of that team conversation.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	5. A deal where you have nothing to lose...

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Zatanna."

The young witch glanced over at Lex.

She saw him mentally sort through several questions, before asking: "What do you know about the upcoming conference that is being held up here in the Watchtower?"

"What?" Zee said, before catching her bearings. "Wait, they're having the Conference _here?_ **Now?!?** "

"Yes," Lex informed her. "Apparently they pushed the date forward to... 'deal with' the subject of my appearance as soon as possible. They should be starting shortly, if they have not already."

Zee started cursing in Latin, and Lex seemed to look amused. "What?" she frowned.

...Oh god, he did _not_ just kindly correct her pronunciation. With a gentle smile. She could just _die_ of embarrassment.

"...But I take it from the content of your speech that you have a bit of a score to settle with Dr. Fate as well," Lex ended.

"Darn right I--" She paused, then squinted her eyes at this Luthor. "Wait. What's _your_ beef with him?"

Lex got a thin, sideways smirk. "Oh, not much. He only just tried to kill me, failed miserably at it for reasons beyond his control, and is now putting forth the notion to his peers that my existence falls under his purview so he can insist he has the authority to rip my soul out of my body and replace it with my dead half-sister's ghost, with the full support of this so-called Magic Council at the gathering."

_...God, that son-of-a--_ Zatanna stared at Lex, literally speechless.

So was everyone else.

"...Wait, that's actually a _thing?_ " said Wally, breaking the silence.

"How--" Artemis began.

"I have a sympathetic insider who has given me some small amount of information regarding the proceedings," Luthor said, gesturing to indicate Captain Marvel.

Everyone turned to look at Marvel, incredulously.

"I'd vote against, but, uh, I'm only there as a representative of... well, somebody else, to report back on things," the Captain said, looking a little uncomfortable. "I don't get a vote, and he usually stays neutral. I tried talking with him, but he's kind of refusing to get involved and doesn't want me to, either, so..."

"...the good Captain can only offer so much help or insight without being seen as a non-impartial party. However," Lex said, leaning forward slightly so he could crane his neck to stare at her to his side, straight-on, "I hear that your father used to sit on this Council when he was operating under his own power, and not also under Fate's... 'purview'. Would I be correct in assuming that you know a fair amount about its inner workings and politics?"

"Oh yeah," Zatanna said, frowning. Her dad had certainly complained often enough about it, and she'd read up on the power structure and the society rules and whatnot, though she'd never been herself, but... "Wait. Hold on. How can Nabu claim that you're under his purview? You're not a magic user, are you?!" she exclaimed.

"That was, in fact, my initial protest, when I was able to accost a few of the members upon their arrival with the good Captain's advance warning," Lex agreed. "Apparently he has some argument to give on that front, which he said he would put forth when the point of order came up during the talks. Luckily, the 'sentencing' Fate wants to perform for the charge against me seems to be considered a serious enough 'punishment' that he has to at least inform the council first, regardless of my status. Otherwise I've no doubt he would have enacted it already, by this point," Lex said sourly.

"Bet this 'purview' thing's got to do with the things in your hands," Wally put out there.

"No bet," Luthor shot back smoothly with no small amusement, before returning his attention to Zatanna. "This Dr. Fate -- ah, is Nabu is the name of the ghost in the helmet? -- mmm, well, he seems to feel threatened by my presence. If this... _these_... 'great power's I seem to have are in fact real and possibly controllable, would they rival his own?" Lex asked, flicking his fingers upwards aagain.

"Yes," Zatanna said immediately. "But I don't know if you'd ever be able to control them--"

"Whether I could or not, the power is there, though?" Lex said. "Would he have reason to fear his power could be rivaled or eligibility for Council seat questioned, if I joined forces with someone who could use that power, who might hold a grudge against him?"

Zatanna stared at him.

Lex began to smile.

"I can't go up against Fate like that," Zatanna told him, feeling uneasy, almost queasy at the idea of standing up in front of the entire Council and trying to... No. Just, no. No way.

"I'm not asking you to," Lex told her with a smirk. "I'm simply looking for explanations as to the possible motivations for his behavior."

"I'm not going up against my dad--"

"--which I am also not asking you to do," Lex cut her off, eyes going sharp. "What I would like to propose is something very different."

Zee took in a shallow breath.

...Oh, she was gonna regret this. She heard a devil's deal when it was being offered to her.

"Go on," Zee said.

"Zee--" Wally warned.

"--Shut up, Wally. We're just talking," Zatanna shot out, not taking her eyes off of Luthor.

Lex began to smile.

"I propose an exchange of services," Lex began. "Your help with this upcoming council hearing, for my vow to help free your father from Nabu's influence, in whatever way I am able, to the best extent of my abilities."

"You really think you can do that?" Wally all-but-squeaked.

"...Or die trying," Lex said with a devil-may-care smirk that decried the seriousness of the situation.

"I can't help you," Zatanna told him painfully. "I can't go up against him." She'd have to challenge Dr. Fate for the right to address the Council to be able to speak on Lex's behalf, because there was no way he'd let her speak out against him. It would be the only way she could get them to listen. But she couldn't beat Dr. Fate in a magic duel. No-one could.

"I don't mean to use your magic," Lex said frankly, staring her in the eye. "I mean to use your knowledge."

Zatanna blinked at him.

"...What?"

"I don't want you to compromise your position," Lex said. "I don't want you put in a less-favorable situation, whatever the outcome of the Conference today." He smiled. "In essence, I mean to make this a no-lose situation," he said spreading his hands out. "One where things won't get any worse, and both our situations can only improve by the actions that I take." He leaned towards her slightly. "But for that, I need information."

Zatanna swallowed hard. _Nothing to lose, and everything to gain?_ It sounded too good to be true...

"You currently have no standing in the council, correct?" Lex said. "Thus, you would not be bound by the same constraints of 'impartiality' as Captain Marvel, here," Lex motioned to him. "You could share as much knowledge as you like, I suspect." He made it more of a question than a statement.

Zatanna grimaced. "No," she admitted. "Actualy, there _are_ some things I know that I can't talk about."

Not taken aback in the least, Lex asked, "Would my asking, and your telling me that you can't talk about something, compromise your standing in the magic community?"

"No..."

"Would you particularly _mind_ helping me with this by answering a few simple questions?" he asked, eyes blazing, suddenly looking very dangerous.

"Oh, geez," said Captain Marvel.

Zatanna hesitated for a moment.

But only a moment.

Because the look of him was of unusable, uncontrollable, unworkable power roiling under the surface, and to her mind's eye his body was almost as complete a mess as the state of his soul, but his eyes...

...his eyes promised absolute mischief and utter _mayhem_ to those who crossed him.

Like one body-snatching, father-stealing, Dr. Fate.

And, lords above help her, she believed he could do it.

All he needed was a little help...

"I'm in," Zatanna said on a grim impulse, shoving herself upright from the table.

...and Zatanna meant to give it to him.

Lex flashed her a quick grin, bright as the sun, then stood himself.

"Oh, _geez_ ," moaned Captain Marvel. "I can't hear this."

"Really?" said Lex. "And here I thought attending a Council meeting might be _educational_."

Zatanna must have missed something, because Captain Marvel froze for a moment, eyes going wide, and then he groaned and said, "Oh geez -- I _really_ can't hear this!"

"That's all right, I think," Lex told him genially. "I'd rather you didn't hear this part myself. You might feel a need to have to warn someone to keep your partiality if you did." Zatanna didn't miss the glances some over her teammates exchanged, or the almost gleeful note on which Lex ended, but Luthor regained her attention by asking her, "--Where would you like to talk?" as he motioned towards the door.

Well, Zatanna wasn't that hungry anyway. They walked out and left the rest of Young Justice to their dinner.

Wally called after them, wanting to know about their finishing eating first, but Zatanna ignored him. They had more important things to discuss. Like saving Lex's soul from further damage, and her dad from mystic possession. Food could totally wait.

"So," Lex began, as they settled in an quiet alcove away from all distraction, "I think that perhaps we should start with how long a time Captain Marvel believes I have before my 'point of order' is brought to the main forum, and then discuss how best I might spend this time preparing..."

~*~*~*~*~*~


	6. The Council in open session

~*~*~*~*~*~

The following afternoon, Zatanna and Lex were standing in the main lounge area, outside the doors to the large meeting room on the Watchtower satellite that the Council had chosen for their most recent Conference.

So was the rest of Young Justice.

Captain Marvel grimaced and sighed.

"I'm not gonna be able to help you guys out if you get into trouble," he warned them. "I really don't think you should be doing this."

"Don't worry, they won't get involved," Lex said smoothly, not bothering to glance over them.

Conner and some of the others exchanged glances, but Zatanna broke in and said, ::Hey, he's right. I can't have you guys getting in the middle of things, and neither can Lex. If you do, you'll make them worse.::

::Worse than Lex losing his soul?:: Conner asked angrily.

::Yes,:: said Zatanna. ::Standing as observers means we can't interfere. Witnesses may make Dr. Fate or anybody else think twice about bending the rules. Worst-case? At least we'll be able to tell the Justice League what we saw happen if things go bad, and let the adults battle it out later -- but only if none of us try and interrupt anything. If even one of us does, then all bets are off. They'll be able to do anything they want to all of us to shut us up.::

::I have attended such meetings before, and Zatanna knows of them from her father's previous heavy involvement,:: Kaldur'ahm told them. ::We shall warn you if anything you do might come close to crossing the line, but you _must_ listen to us.::

::Fine!:: Wally said, throwing up his hands in exasperation, speaking for the rest of them. He made it clear from his tone that he didn't have to like it, though.

The doors opened, and Dr. Fate stepped out, intoning, "And now we will find--"

He came to a halt, staring at Lex, who was standing directly in front of him. Lex was dressed to the nines, hands behind his back, waiting calmly.

And then Lex smiled.

Zatanna just about swore that she could tell Dr. Fate was scowling at him, even through the helmet.

"It's time for the open portion of the Conference, yes?" Lex said, then raised his voice, projecting it to those who stood behind Dr. Fate as well. "When I heard of this meeting, I told Zatanna about your change in time and venue, and I believe she and a friend of hers thought it might be educational for their non-magical friends to observe the proceedings as invited guests. I _do_ hope you don't mind," Lex said in perfectly reasonable tones, tilting his head upwards, as though he couldn't possibly see any reason why such a reasonable request might be denied.

"Ah, Kaldur'ahm!" one of the older sorceresses exclaimed, sweeping forward with a smile on her face and open arms to greet the team leader of Young Justice.

"My Queen," Kaldur said with light affection and a small smile, not fighting the embrace, though perhaps looking a tad embarrassed at the attention.

The sorceress reluctantly let go of Kaldur and held him at armslength, examining him carefully. "I've hardly gotten to see you these past long months -- you _have_ been keeping up with your studies?" she queried. At the quickly-stifled snickers of Wally, a la an elbow in the gut from Artemis, the Queen continued. "I see no reason why you and your friends should not see how we handle such matters, do you, Dr. Fate?"

Dr. Fate kept quiet, except for, perhaps, the sound of grinding teeth.

"Oh, I agree," said Lex breezily, picking up the discussion with ease. "Who knows? They might even learn a thing or two about magic."

Queen Mera of Atlantis tilted her head slightly and looked him over. A slight, interested smile spread across her lips. It reminded Conner of the way Wonder Woman had looked at him, when they'd first met.

"So," Lex said, grinning and clapping his hands together. "What's next on the agenda?"

"You," Dr. Fate said succinctly.

" _Really_ ," Lex said with mock surprise. "How _very_ interesting. Shall we discuss this here, or would you like to move somewhere a little more... _comfortable?_ " he asked, all-innocence.

Dr. Fate's eyes visibly narrowed. "Anywhere is acceptable to me, so long as this business is concluded swiftly."

"Mm, I agree," said Lex. "Let's discuss things right here, then. Shall we?" he said, backing up a few steps, so that the rest of the magical members of the Council could leave the room, though not enough that the majority of them did not remain somewhat clustered in and by the doorway.

"Stand over there," Dr. Fate directed the members of Young Justice, and they moved off to the far side of the room to watch and listen.

"--So enlighten me, please," Lex asked, turning towards Dr. Fate, as they more or less slowly circled around each other in the central area. "What exactly does this magical council need to discuss about me?"

"I intend to pursue justice upon you," Dr. Fate stated. "To replace your soul with the soul of one who shares your bloodline, to give her your body in recompense for the foul murder you perpetrated upon her person and the loss of her own." He stood stock still and drew himself up to his full height. "Does any oppose--"

"--A point of order," Lex interrupted. "Have you discussed my status in the magical community here, as to whether or not you can lay claim to me as being under your jurisdiction and subject to your judgment, with those present?"

"Yes," Dr. Fate said tersely.

"--And what conclusion did you come to, exactly?" Lex asked before Fate could get another word in.

There was a pause.

"It is not something to which anyone of lower rank than the High Council members is privy," Dr. Fate said, and he sounded almost smug.

Lex's eyes narrowed. "I myself cannot even be informed of the conclusions to which you came?"

"No."

"And who are the members of the High Council present at this meeting?"

Dr. Fate, Mera, an older bearded man in puffy blue robes, and a dark-skinned female shrouded in a sari each inclined their heads.

"I see," Lex said neutrally, scanning the crowd and visually picking them out.

::Zee?:: Wally asked, glancing over at the young magician. She looked like she was two seconds away from starting to bite at her fingernails.

::This isn't right,:: she said nervously. ::We had a plan, worst-case he was going to claim that they didn't have jurisdiction over him because this isn't his Earth and they're overstepping their territory, but he has to be able to get them to say what he is one way or the other to do that! He can't make an argument _against_ his status if they won't discuss it! This wasn't--:: She wrung her hands. ::Fate shouldn't have been able to classify his status as High Council business, as a secret! I don't know how he's going to be able to--::

"Well, then," Lex said, seemingly unperturbed. "I suppose, leaving out the _particulars_ of how I have obtained my current status, which it seems you have classified as some sort of state secret, I suppose I ought to make at least one thing quite clear before we proceed," he said with a slight sigh, then settled into a comfortable stationary pose. "For the record, I would like to unequivocally state before the members of the Council that I am, in fact, an experienced magic-user currently under the purview of the North American region."

Dead silence fell.

::...Uh, what?:: Wally asked.

::Zee?:: Dick queried. ::What the heck is he doing?::

::That's not...:: Zatanna said, then stopped uncertainly.

"Do you deny this?" Lex asked of Dr. Fate, tilting his chin up, every last inch of his posture a challenge.

Dr. Fate stayed quiet.

"If you do, I'm sure that one of the council members would be _happy_ to perform a test to prove or disprove this before all those present," Lex added, to the murmurs of the crowd.

::Oh,:: Zatanna said, her eyes widening. ::Oh!::

Dr. Fate's eyes narrowed.

"Ah, good. I shall take that as an affirmative, then, shall I?" Lex said. "Well, then. As an experienced magic-user in the North American region, I challenge you for your place on the High Council."

Kaldur'ahm blinked.

The rest of Young Justice exchanged glances.

Dr. Fate jerked in place.

And oh, if looks could kill...

It was a good thing Dr. Fate wasn't Kryptonian.

"...You claim that you are an _experienced_ magic user?" Fate intoned angrily.

::Uh oh...:: Zatanna said, on edge. ::You need to be an 'experienced' magic user for a challenge to have to be taken seriously, otherwise it can be turned down,:: she explained. ::But people can't just go around claiming stuff like that if they aren't one. That _really_ pisses off the _real_ magic users of us.:: She bit her lip in worry.

"I say I am," Lex stated. "And I have the right to a fair and balanced outside assessment to prove it," Lex said. "As such, if you challenge my word, then I shall have the council cast the appropriate spell to determine my magical abilities and level," he informed them all. "Straightforward enough, don't you think? And completely unable to be faked, yes?"

::Oh. Hah! --Fate can't get away with it, now!:: Zatanna said, grinning happily. ::If he calls Lex on it out in the open, everyone will know that he isn't a magic user and Fate can't lay claim to him, not without having to discuss the sigils and whatever else the High Council decided. None of that will show up on the usual spell-scan. Fate either has to risk opening Lex's status up to a general Council vote, or--::

Zatanna cut off in the middle of her thought, and her eyes went wide.

::Zee?:: Wally asked. ::Or _what?_ ::

"I accept your challenge," said Dr. Fate, eyes flashing.

"Eep!" Rocket said, covering her mouth with both hands.

" _Excellent_ ," Lex grinned, all-teeth.

Zatanna went white.

::Um, Zatanna?:: Dick asked tentatively ::Exactly what chance does Lex have of beating Dr. Fate in a magic battle?::

::Eep,:: the magician summed up in a word.

Kaldur'ahm didn't have much to say on the matter, and neither did M'gann or Wally or Artemis. They were all too busy dogpiling an enraged Conner to hold him back from doing something stupid.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 7 and 8 are done, but I probably won't be able to get to writing up Chapter 9 until the weekend, possibly next week. So, should I post the other two chapters right away, or should I do a one-a-day thing to help space it out for a more 'regular' update rate?


	7. The Definition of a Magician's Duel

~*~*~*~*~*~

Conner's near-violence went unnoticed in the uproar from the rest of the gathered magical community, and they weren't settling very quickly, either.

::How could you let him--!:: Conner demanded angrily.

:: _That was supposed to be a last resort!_ :: Zatanna mentally yelled back.

::Wait, you _talked_ about this with him?!:: Wally asked, shocked.

::We talked about a _lot_ of things, Wally,:: Zatanna said caustically, rubbing her temples. ::This one's the most likely to get him killed!::

::What's he going to do?:: M'gann asked, starting to float a little, she was so worried.

::I don't know,:: Zatanna said nervously, glancing about. ::We talked about a _lot_ of stuff. Some things... I don't really know for sure. We covered a lot of magic-for-non-magical folks stuff, and basic magic theory, and--:: she shook her head. ::A lot of random stuff. I made a couple talismans and props to show him some things that might be useful later, if, y'know, he _survives_ all this -- passive stuff -- but I don't see how that's gonna help him if he doesn't even have the materials to make something, and he can't imbue them with magic, and they take _time_ to make--::

::Zatanna,:: Kaldur cut in, trying to calm her increasing anxiety, ::What was the original plan?::

::He was supposed to make them say what his status was!:: she told them, fear turning to anger quickly. ::If they said he was a magic user, he'd challenge that, and the spell would show that he doesn't qualify. Since he's not a magic-user, that should have gotten him off, or his argument that he's from another earth, because that's the kind of thing that could have them putting off sentencing indefinitely -- they'd have to figure out the jurisdictional issues first, and there'd be a huge fight if people started claiming influence off-planet again,:: she explained. ::If they tried to tangle him up in bringing up the power sigils on his hands and he couldn't argue himself out of that, then worst-case he'd bring up the fact that his soul was already half-shredded and the only thing holding it together was the darker shadow-one, of hope-and-rebirth.::

::Okay...:: Wally said. ::But how would that help?::

Zatanna bit her lip and wrapped her arms around herself. ::Because it's the only thing holding his soul together,:: she repeated, ::and it's connected to his body. If Dr. Fate pulled his soul out of his body...:: She turned a little green. ::His soul was already torn to shreds. Fate would have to _tear_ it out of the power that's trying to contain it, in even _smaller_ pieces, and...:: She swallowed and shook her head.

::...You truly believe that he'd run the risk of obliterating Lex's soul?:: Kaldur said quietly.

Conner stood there, quietly fuming, glaring daggers across the room at Fate.

::You guys remember what Fate is like when he's being all judgmental, you tell me!:: Zatanna snapped angrily, wiping away tears. ::I don't know why Lex hasn't said anything about that!:: she continued, in obvious frustration. ::We talked about it! He knows that soul death is a huge deal and no-one would be okay with that, not even with a huge amount of evidence against him and in favor of Tess -- I _told_ him that! They'd have to take it to a common vote--::

::--perhaps he could not risk it,:: Kaldur said suddenly, looking even more grim.

::What?:: Zatanna said.

::The High Council deemed it a secret matter,:: Kaldur said slowly. ::If they were referring to the power sigils, and he brought this information before the general assembly, they could hold him in contempt of the entire magical community.::

::Oh god,:: Zatanna said, horrified. ::He-- he can't say anything?! Oh no, he'd lose the right to argue his case the moment he tries--!::

::Is there anything we can do?:: M'gann asked, fretting.

:: _ **Nobody**_ can interfere in a Challenge,:: Zatanna said, sounding like she was about to start pulling out her own hair. ::Anybody who tries...:: she shivered.

::Don't try,:: Kaldur summed up succinctly.

"Just to be clear," Lex said, "since we have an audience," he added, glancing at the Young Justice members with the slightest of showman-smiles, "Challenges for High Council seats tend to be 'to the death', yes?"

"This is not good, not good," Dick muttered.

"Oh, no -- they can't do that, can they?" said M'gann, going a little pale and grabbing Conner's arm for support.

::Hell no, the League wouldn't let them,:: Rocket said. ::--Can't we tell someone?!::

"But then," Lex continued, tapping his chin, "I wouldn't want anyone to say that I was attempting to commit suicide to avoid Dr. Fate's... fate for me, now would I?"

Conner's head came up.

"Because getting myself killed would rather spoil the whole purpose of this little exercise in judgment for you, wouldn't it?" he continued, facing Fate. "After all, my dear, sociopathic, homicidal half-sister's ghost wouldn't have a living vessel to store it in if you strike me dead where I stand here and now, now would it?" he continued with a smirk.

There were a few murmurs at his words, and Conner's head came up a little more.

"But then," he continued, waving that point off, "that's of little consequence to _you_ , I suppose."

"You are to remain alive for judgment," Dr. Fate intoned, though at this point he looked like he'd rather just wipe Lex off the face of existence and be done with it.

The Young Justice members, on the other hand, let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Mm," said Lex. "Glad to hear it. --Though, now that it's been brought up," Lex mused, "I should think that we might as well be fair about things, shouldn't we?"

"...Fair," Dr. Fate echoed flatly.

"Why, yes!" Lex said. "After all, it wouldn't be fair for you to have to restrain yourself while _I_ would have free reign to kill _you_ at my leisure," he added with a smile, to a few laughs of disbelief at his audacity from the magical members here and there. "After all," Lex continued, with a tilt of his head, "soul death is frowned upon in these parts, is it not?"

Dr. Fate went completely still and the whispers died out.

"I beg your pardon?" blurted out a shorter witch in a teal-and-red pants suit at the outskirts of the crowd, thoroughly taken aback.

"Oh, I apologize," Lex said, turning to face her. "Perhaps I am assuming something incorrectly. When we speak of Dr. Fate," he said, gesturing at the sorcerer as he spoke to the witch, "are we discussing the disembodied spirit Nabu? The body within which he dwells?"

"The owner of the Helmet of Fate," Dr. Fate answered coldly.

"Ah, the owner of the Helmet of Fate, of course, of course," Lex repeated, tapping a finger against his lips. "But, please forgive me, I'm still a little confused," Lex continued, turning back to face him. "For me to Challenge and successfully win a 'duel to the death' with Dr. Fate, then, and obtain his seat on the High Council, would I need to kill the host body who owns the Helmet of Fate, obliterate the spirit who has spent so may centuries residing within it, destroy the soul that was originally housed within the host body, or all three?" he asked oh-so-politely.

Dr. Fate said nothing, but the rest of the others present had no such restraint, and the background chatter jumped at least twenty decibels.

"Because I can certainly see why you have held your High Council seat for so long if it is the latter," Lex said with high sarcasm, raising his voice. "After all, soul death is such a distasteful thing to inflict upon any living being, don't you agree?"

::...Well, that's one way to bring it up?:: Artemis said faintly, as the rest of Young Justice stared on.

The other High Council members exchanged looks, while the rest of the crowd exchanged muttered comments that grew louder over time.

"Dr. Fate? Is there a reason why you are remaining silent?" Lex prodded. "Do you, or do you not agree that inflicting soul death upon a living being is something that should never be inflicted upon anyone, for any reason whatsoever?" He paused, with a thin, knowing smile. "Or is there some reason why you feel that you should not answer that question?"

The murmurs increased.

"Do you feel that perhaps your seat at the High Council shields you from having to state your true views on the matter in public?" Lex continued. "And does the host soul -- with whom you share that body from time-to-time, I assume -- have any opinion on this, as well?" Lex asked. "Or do you claim to speak for him? Because I, for one, would like to hear it in his own words, if you don't mind, if it is _his_ soul that would be at stake in the challenge."

::Yeah, like Fate's gonna take the helmet off for _that_ ,:: Artemis brushed off, angrily.

::As if we should be so lucky,:: Wally said sourly. They'd already used up all their 'luck' on him and Kaldur'ahm. It was why Zatara was in such trouble in the first place -- Zatanna's father had made that promise to put on the helmet if only Nabu would let go of Zatanna, that third and final time, and Nabu hadn't let him take it off, since.

"Because if you do claim to speak for Zatara, well, how are we to know this for certain, otherwise?" Lex demanded. "Besides," he added with a coating of sugar-sweetness over the underlying poison, "it seems to me that that would be an abuse of office, _speaking for another Council-level magic user in their own voice_."

Kaldur saw Captain Marvel wince guiltily, then slowly facepalm, across the room from them.

::Oh god,:: Zatanna thought faintly. ::He just referred to a Level 4 take-down offense,:: she stated blankly. ::He just implied that Nabu has been-- he practically _accused_ him of-- in front of--!:: She shook herself out of it. ::That kind of mind control gets people branded as Class Z fugitives from magical justice and killed on sight!::

::So, what, it's okay to possess people, just not as long as they've got a seat on your magic-y Council?:: Artemis asked in disgust, crossing her arms. Wally looked just as disgusted, and M'gann winced at Conner's side.

Dick looked almost broodingly thoughtful. ::Kaldur, _has_ that issue ever come up before?:: he asked. ::Has Dr. Fate's helmet ever been taken up by a magic user who was already a member of the Council?::

::...I do not know,:: was all Kaldur'ahm could say. ::Most of the Dr. Fate-s have historically started out young. But, technically, Dr. Fate has only been using his one vote on the High Council,:: he added. ::I do not believe that he has also been casting a vote for Zatara in the general Council decisions, as well, though preventing a Council member from voting is a lesser offense.::

"--Tell me, what accountability do you have for what you say and do, _exactly?_ " Lex added dangerously. "Is it to be believed that everything you say must be correct and true, simply by the nature of your holding that seat of office? Does anyone with lower standing than the High Council dare to tell you that they do not agree with what you believe, without risking censure or punishment? _Who_ exactly is allowed to question what you do or say and whether you are lying, simply mistaken, or flat out and immorally _wrong?_ From what I understand, the other High Council members hold absolute power and the final authority over only what goes on in their own regions, for the most part, don't they--?"

Dr. Fate seemed to be struggling for words and getting none out, he was so enraged.

::Luthor's not just trying to get himself out of trouble, is he,:: Dick asked quietly in descending tones.

::No, he is not,:: Kaldur'ahm agreed just as quietly, as the unrest rippling through the magic users around them grew.

::...Conner?:: M'gann asked in confusion, when he shifted from side to side, because Conner...

...Conner was smiling grimly, and he _wasn't_ two seconds from attempting to tear Dr. Fate's head or helmet off anymore.

::He has a plan,:: Conner told them, crossing his arms and watching Lex like a hawk. ::He's going to win.::

::Are you kidding?:: Rocket said. ::I mean, not that I want the guy to die or anything--!::

::Look at him,:: Conner said. ::He's _angry_ and trying not to show it. He's not scared at all.:: He took a deep breath. ::Luthor pissed him off like that, too, before.::

::Yeah, and when Lex made Luthor blow his stack you had to take out Luthor's Mercybot for him so he wouldn't get squished, remember?:: Wally reminded him, sounding a little sick. ::So who's gonna take out Dr. Fate's magic so he doesn't get squished _this_ time?:: he asked.

Zatanna's head snapped up at Wally's words. Then she got a distant look and straightened, and her eyes widened.

::Zee?:: Dick asked, frowning, because that had kind of been a rhetorical question, but Zatanna's head whipped around and she stared at Lex.

" _No way_ ," she whispered. "Oh, god, he wouldn't..." she shivered. "He _couldn't!_ Not **now!** There's _no way--!_ "

"Zee?" Dick asked out loud, reaching for her.

It was about that point that the banging of a wooden staff on the floor brought everyone's attention back to the proceedings.

"It is settled then!" the old man on the High Council exclaimed grouchily. "A Challenge between Dr. Fate and Lex Luthor has been called, and shall be borne witness to by those of us gathered here."

Queen Mera brought up what looked like the usual displacement spell to separate Lex and Dr. Fate from the rest of the those present, and it spread outward to encompass the entire Watchtower satellite. They all could see the two of them and vice-versa, and everyone could interact with the environment, but no-one could interact with each other.

"BEGIN!" Mera intoned.

Zatanna covered her mouth with both hands and gasped as Lex immediately turned tail and fled.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	8. The Art of (Magical) War(fare)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex was angry as hell and really having a blast, hitting his stride. He didn't usually get to debate anyone like this, if one could call what he was doing a debate. More like tearing apart the competition, and oh, how he was enjoying it! "From what I understand, the other High Council members seem to have purview over only their own regions for the most part, don't they--?"

"--We are not here to debate the details of the High Council power structure with a young upstart!" the older High Council sorcerer, robed in blue, cut in, thoroughly annoyed. "Get to the point, boy. You want this Challenge to be mutually not to the death, yes?" he asked in a gravelly voice.

"Yes, that is correct..." Lex said, turning to face him and trailing off purposefully, raising his eyebrows.

"Fine," the man harrumphed at him. "To the disablement, then."

Lex's eyes narrowed, but he quickly composed himself. He'd hoped for a name, but no such luck, apparently. The man had avoided him yesterday when he'd been trying to approach them with Captain Marvel's help, too.

"Clarify, please," he queried instead. "Disablement?" Because asking directly for a name was offensive to a magic user -- he knew that much from Marvel, at least.

"Disablement -- to the point that a challenger can no longer continue to duel," the old sorcerer told him.

"Can you be more specific?" Lex asked, teasing it out. "Because there are a great many ways that a body can be 'disabled'," he began. "Forcibly rendered unconscious, physically damaged or otherwise constrained in such a manner that one can no longer move or speak--"

"Any or all of the above," the old man growled at him. "Feel free to... 'get creative'," he drawled out, looking down his nose at Lex.

"Just wanting to make sure everything is clear to everyone present, including the guests," Lex said, palms raised.

The bastard snorted at him. Lex couldn't blame him. Much. After all, he'd been actively _trying_ to be offensive without letting any of the members of the High Council be able to openly call him out on it.

The crotchety old sorcerer raised his staff--

"--And for the 'field of play'," Lex spoke out, quickly. "I suppose you could restrict it to just the room here," he said, with a lazy air and a negligent wave, sparing a glance at the irate Nabu-spirit, that was to the point now that it was contorting the face of Zatara horribly in rage, he'd so inflamed it by his words. "But I suppose we could both use the space to blow off some steam," he put forth blandly, "and it wouldn't do if some of us couldn't show off a bit for the general assembly, yes?" _Not after I've insulted him and just about outright accused Dr. Fate of being able to hold onto his position only by cheating his way around the rules._ For someone with a pompous title like he did, a so-called 'Lord of Order', Lex had a feeling that that would be a big deal.

It was the longest three seconds of his life, watching the Council members exchange glances, before they nodded, and Queen Mera said, "Agreed. The whole satellite."

And then the staff came down.

Lex breathed out carefully in relief, fully aware of the fact that the hardest and most risky part was yet to come.

"It is settled then!" the old man on the High Council exclaimed grouchily. "A Challenge between Dr. Fate and Lex Luthor has been called, and shall be borne witness to by those of us gathered here."

Queen Mera brought up what looked like the usual displacement spell to separate Lex and Dr. Fate from the rest of the those present, and it spread outward to encompass the entire Watchtower satellite. They all could see the two of them and vice-versa, and everyone could interact with the environment, but no-one could interact with each other.

"BEGIN!" Mera intoned.

Lex, balanced on the balls of his feet, immediately turned and ran and a full-out tilt for the nearest doorway.

His strategy had worked. Nabu had been so caught up in his rage that it had been caught off-guard by his seeming 180-turn in reaction -- from aggressive as hell, to fleeing like weaker prey. He was around the corner and ducking before the first fireball slammed into the wall behind him, and if he had the bastard so caught up in a red haze that _that_ was all that the centuries-old body-stealing ghost was coherent enough to think of casting at him, then he'd already managed the first step of what he'd set out to do.

 _And now he's going to think I'm all talk and no-bite,_ Lex thought to himself as he raced down the corridors. _So he'll underestimate me. Hopefully._

He knew the Watchtower, having been up here long enough, but he had a feeling that Nabu did as well. So instead of trying to lose him in the corridors, he just took the most direct, non-line-of-sight route he could to his destination, pushing for speed.

A turn, a turn, and another turn, and he grabbed a final doorway as he passed it and dug in his heels. With the momentum he'd had, he didn't come to a screeching halt -- instead, he ended up tumbling haphazardly into the room and landing in a heap on the linoleum flooring.

He scrambled to his knees, ignoring bruises and bumps, and yanked open the closest cabinet drawers, pulling out what he was looking for -- a large bag full of table salt, which he'd put together earlier, and a pair of gloves. He only had a good twenty seconds lead time on Fate at the most, so he gave himself ten to prepare.

He stood up and tossed the bag into the sink, and held the gloves between his teeth. Then he opened the top of the bag up and ran about a cup of water into it from the kitchen faucet. He quickly shut it off before it got too wet, then grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and shoved the stick end in, stirring it up quickly to wet it all down. He tossed the spoon aside, hurriedly slipped on the gloves, grabbed an iron skillet from the hanging pot-rack above in one hand, snatched up the bag of salt in the other, and darted around the dividing counter between the kitchen and the rest of the open area past it. Then he crouched down and waited a quick breath-two-thr...

He didn't have to wait long. Dr. Fate came barreling past him not three seconds after.

Lex waited the half-beat he needed to -- timing being _everything_ here -- and shot forward as Dr. Fate pivoted and turned his head to scan the room.

He backhanded Dr. Fate with the solid, heavy iron skillet in the head so hard he spun almost halfway around again, staggering to keep upright.

Lex wasted no time. He immediately let go of the skillet handle, kicked Dr. Fate in the back of the knees, and shoved the bag of salt over his head as he fell. Fate went down, but was immediately struggling to stand up again.

Lex had just gotten his foot on one shoulder and all his fingers under the rim of the helmet when Fate started to rise up, floating, spinning in place and letting out a muffled angry roar as slightly-damp salt cascaded down the sides of his helmet-face and stuck.

Lex heard the start of a chant, but he really didn't care. He was braced properly; it was time for the endgame, all-or-nothing.

So he yanked as hard as he could with his arms, straightening his back and transferring the force down his legs to the man's shoudler and lower back.

The explosion blew Lex twenty feet across the room, and when he hit the wall, he blacked out.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex groaned and blinked, because god he hurt all over. _Ugh, what happened, and how long was I...?_

Then he remembered where he was and what was going on and quickly sat upright.

A body was lying face-down in front of him.

A helmetless body.

 _Thank god!_ was Lex's first relieved thought. His second was _oh shit, where **is** the damn thing?!?_

He scuffled around, and realized as he smacked his hand against the bag of salt lying nearby that -- surprise! -- the helmet was in the bag. Literally.

Lex had to fight down the urge to giggle -- he was _that_ relieved.

 _It worked. It actually worked._ Silk gloves to insulate him from unrestrained magical power -- like lightning bolts that tried to zap people who grabbed the helmet. Salt to break curses and spells -- _like lightning bolts that tried to zap people who grabbed the damn helmet_ \-- and water to make it stick. And a burlap bag with a silk-bag interior to hold in any extra magic juice that might otherwise have zapped Lex in the chest.

 _Nothing like going back to the magical basics,_ Lex thought with bloody glee, but he wasn't done yet -- not by a long shot.

He scooped up the bag with the helmet in it, ducked back into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and extracted a few goodies that he'd managed to persuade, if not outright trick, Zatanna into making for him the day before. He'd asked her to demonstrate a few techniques related to how she'd handle something that _she'd_ thought was months or more off at the time.

Lex, on the other hand, was planning on putting those supplies to good use within the next five minutes.

With these things now in hand, he took off at a dead run straight ahead and down the empty corridors, heading for the far side entrance to the Watchtower rooms that had been set aside for the Conference...

~*~*~*~*~*~

The rest of the magic users there for the conference and the general Council meeting were dying to see what was going on, but also perfectly happy to keep their distance from the actual fighting. Setting up a remote-viewing spell would have disrupted the barrier spell, though, so the lot of them travelled in one large trailing group along behind the path Lex and Dr. Fate had barreled down, taking it at a more sedate walking pace.

Some of them were making bets and laughing, making guesses about what Fate would do, once he caught up to the young unknown murderer. They all thought there'd be plenty of time to watch Fate teach the criminal with the smart mouth a lesson or two in front of the entire community.

When they spilled out into the dining room area, there were more than a few gasps of astonishment, and the members of Young Justice pushed their way to the front.

"What on earth..." was a common murmur among the crowd. --But then, they weren't _on_ Earth, were they?

" _ **DAD!!**_ " was what Zatanna yelled when she saw her father sprawled out across the floor, bleeding slightly from a head injury with a very nasty-looking bruise at his temple.

She pushed her way through the crowd and ran over, dropping down next to him, too busy crying over him in utter relief to pay much attention to anything else, but Kaldur and Dick noticed the skillet, the haphazard state of the kitchen, and the long spray of wet salt over Zatara's back and across the floor.

So did the old sorcerer with the wooden staff, with a frown.

He crouched down slowly and made a few mystic passes over Zatara with the staff, muttering under his breath, then pulled a sour face and waved his hand in the air, conjuring an image of the Atlantean Queen, and after a short exchange the barrier came down with a soft *bang!*

Zatanna was too concerned with getting her father turned over and cradling his head in her lap to really notice anyone else move off, as her magical brethren meandered away, most of them muttering in shock and appalled disbelief at this unlikely turn of events.

The rest of Young Justice didn't even need M'gann's telepathy, just shared glances between them, to split up -- Wally, Artemis, and Dick to help Zatanna take her father to the medical bay, and the rest to follow after Kaldur'ahm to see where Lex had ended up, and what further trouble he might've gotten himself into.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex hadn't even bothered trying to move quietly even before he felt the barrier drop, with a full-body shiver across all his exposed skin. He just got himself to the Conference room as fast as his legs could carry him, and scanned the room. When his eyes fell upon the bottle-like vase that Fate had used to hold Tess' ghost, he gave a sigh of relief and jogged over to it. It had made sense that Dr. Fate would have brought her along to speak out against him if necessary, just to further nail down the lid of his figurative coffin, or perhaps just to have her on-hand to perform the ceremony immediately after he'd rammed Lex's sentence through the Council. But for the anchor for her ghost to have been left out in the open like this, unguarded, with no-one around... It was almost too good to be true.

He didn't really have time to contemplate it, though. He didn't have much time, at all. _Please, please let this work,_ he prayed, yanking the helmet out of the bag and dumping all the salt out of it, then knocking it against the side of the table just to be sure about it.

Then he tossed the strips of cloth with black-in runes all along them down onto the table nearby, set the bottle down on the floor, and pulled the cork out of the top of the bottle-vase with a smirk. _Even Fate must've gotten tired of her grating voice, and all her incessant complaints and demands,_ he thought smugly.

He then palmed the Fate helmet in his left hand as he pulled a magic-looking cloth out of the neck of the bottle and tossed it up onto the table surface, then grabbed the first of the new stips of cloth and rubbed it over the top of the bottle to magically 'prepare' it for a new... 'donation' -- to pull in any nearby, untethered souls.

He winced briefly as the Fate helmet seemed to heat up in his palm a bit, and quickly took up the second new bit of cloth and rubbed it around the inside of the helmet. That one was spelled differently, and was supposed to loosen any spirit bindings on the object to which it was applied. _I hope this works,_ Lex thought.

Then Lex raised the helmet up and shook it down right over the top of the open neck, hard. He did it once, twice, three times before he started to hear the noise of people approaching, and cursed under his breath.

He shook it a fourth, then a final fifth time, hard, and winced in surprise at the unexpected jarring sensation that travelled up his arm to the elbow.

He set the helmet down on the table and shook out his arm, worried that he'd hit the bottle, but it looked fine. No, what made him wince backwards was something smoke-like that he saw begin to coalesce down inside the bottle, moving its way up the neck.

He quickly grabbed up the third patch of magic-treated cloth that Zatanna had prepared and shoved in down into the neck of the bottle, a sealing spell. Then he shoved the cork back in as hard as he could, and began to wrap the final, long piece of cloth around the neck of the bottle, up and down it, over and over again -- a final binding spell to help reinforce the sealing spell and keep it intact.

By the time he tied it off, he could hear the crowd was almost to him again.

He grimaced, stripped off the gloves and threw them into the salt bag along with the other used-up magic bindings he'd pulled from the bottle.

Then he tied both the bottle and the bag to his belt over the back of his left thigh with some good, strong cord, palmed the Helmet again, and strode out of the Committee room by way of the front door, head held high.

He truly hoped it had worked -- trying to unhook Nabu from the helmet and shove the vicious old spirit into the same container as Tess' ghostly self. He'd been expecting a little more... well, _something_.

What he never realized, too distracted by the coming crowds to pay proper attention to what he'd been doing, was something rather telling. When he had stripped off his gloves, he had missed the fact that the left-hand glove had had a large hole seared through at the center of his palm, front to back, one that hadn't been there before...

~*~*~*~*~*~


	9. And The Winner Is...

~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time the magical crowd had caught back up with Lex along the extended circuit around the Watchtower and ended up back where they'd started, Zatanna had returned with the rest of Young Justice.

The others had almost tried to talk her out of it, but she'd just shaken her head and demanded to go back, anyway. The League had her father now -- Wonder Woman was watching over him in the medbay, even -- and while he remained unconscious there wasn't anything she or anyone else could do to help him any more than he already was being helped.

Lex, on the other hand, she was still worried about. She needed to know what he'd done to get her father free, because if he'd somehow traded himself for her father...

Zatanna shuddered at the thought and fought the urge to cry all over again.

It was only once she saw Lex stride out of the committee room, with the Helmet of Fate tucked under one arm, that she felt like she could breathe again.

She frowned a little at the bag he had hanging at his back, but then she noticed the bottle hanging next to it. Tess' bottle.

" _Over-achiever_ ," she muttered at him as he stared across the room at her, and at the slight quirky smile he sent her way, she wondered if he could read lips as well as he corrected Latin pronunciation, too.

He glanced around, and began to make his way over to her. Most of the magic users in the room were whispering to each other and giving him a wide berth -- up until the elder High Council member stepped out right in front of him and planted his wooden staff down like a tree.

Lex, startled, came to a screeching halt right in the middle of the room.

Zatanna winced, and tried to make her way over to his side, but the crowd wasn't cooperating with her, and she couldn't get to the large open space they'd all cleared around him without trying to elbow her way through.

She yelped slightly as a strong hand grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back through the crowd.

"Conner!" she said in surprise.

"Come on," he said quietly, and they trailed around the outside to try and come in from another angle of approach, along with Kaldur and the others.

It was Wally's turn to grab her by the other arm next, and _he_ wasn't shy about using his elbows. She and Conner made a trailing 'human' chain through the crowd in Wally's wake, and when Kid Flash got them close enough in, she was able to shove her way through and end up stumbling into the 'clearing', standing at Lex's back.

And then she felt a jerk around her midsection and she was pulled right back out again.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Conner and Wally looked about as pleased as she felt, glowering as they stood by Queen Mera at the outskirts.

Kaldur looked about as openly pleased with the three of them as his Queen looked faintly _un_ exasperated.

Which was to say, he wasn't very happy with them at all in his usual less-than-expressive manner, and neither was she.

"We are here as only observers, Zatanna," Kaldur'ahm reminded her, letting go of her with a twist of his wrist and a swirl of his water-whip.

He glanced up at his queen, who gave him the slightest of nods as he packed his waterbearers back into their sheaths, tattoos slowly fading.

"I need to talk to him," Zatanna said, addressing Queen Mera directly, going for the higher authority.

"Not now, dear," she was told.

"But--!"

Queen Mera tilted her head slightly and looked down on Zatanna with a _very_ High Council **look**. Zatanna shut up.

She didn't have to like it, though.

"The winner hasn't been announced yet," Kaldur'ahm supplied under his breath.

Zatanna whipped her head around to stare at him, eyes wide.

 _Oh,_ she thought weakly, then glanced up at Queen Mera. Technically, she'd almost interrupted the duel, and right in front of a High Council member, too. If Mera had had to step in and stop Zee herself, then...

Well, it wouldn't've mattered if Zatanna hadn't known.

Zatanna shivered. "...Thanks, Kaldur," she said tentatively.

Kaldur'ahm simply nodded to her, then turned back to the proceedings.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex didn't particularly like how this old sorcerer was looking at him, not at all.

Because, if he didn't know any better, that glint in the man's eye had him looking downright **gleeful** that Lex had pulled it off.

....in an 'oh _good_ , now _I_ get to take a crack at him!' sort of way.

 _Maybe_ he shouldn't have tried to piss off the High Council members quite so much earlier.

 _Well, there's nothing for it, now._ Lex steeled himself.

The older sorcerer tapped his staff against the floor a few times, and the crowd quieted down.

"Well," the man began, "That was a _very_ interesting match. It's almost a little difficult to tell who won."

Lex frowned slightly.

He thought that through.

"...You aren't sure whether Dr. Fate won?" Lex asked slowly.

"Did he?" the white-haired sorcerer in blue asked in return, staring him down.

Lex... paused.

Because, yes, he had the Helmet of Fate right now, so, yes, technically he _was_ the 'owner of the helmet of Fate', but...

...they couldn't _possibly_ be all right with him keeping it. He'd expected them to demand it back from the start, that _maybe_ he'd get some say in who got to have it and, worst-case, whoever took it from him would think twice about the whole soul-ripping thing, expecially since he'd already defeated a Helmet-owner once, before.

No, they couldn't _possibly_ be all right with him keeping it. He wasn't a magic user. Nabu would have told them his real status. They'd never let a magicless human join the Council, let alone the High Council. So what was the game here? What was the smart move?

If Lex claimed to be the owner of the Helmet of Fate, or that he had the right to be, he couldn't be challenged right away again. There were rules against that. But they could demand to see proof of his magical status, possibly, and that would invalidate the Challenge -- only a magic user could Challenge a High Council member for their seat. Which meant that the Helmet would be given back to Zatara, and Lex absolutely did not want that to happen.

If Lex gave up the Helmet to Zatanna, he knew she'd back him up. She owed him one, and she was just as naiive as the rest of the Young Justice members -- she'd follow through on her own promises. Honestly, he'd been planning to hand it over to her from the beginning, as a sort of trophy-prize for vengeance well-served. The removal spell probably hadn't worked -- Zatanna had told him when she'd made the magic-imbued cloths that Nabu was probably stuck in the helmet pretty hard, that something as simple as what she was showing him almost certaintly wouldn't work. Lex certainly couldn't tell one way or the other, at any rate. But Zatanna would have all the time in the world to shove Nabu into the bottle with Tess, once he'd gifted her with it, and the High Council seat that went with it.

And as far as Lex was concerned, it would be just desserts for the malevolent spirit, getting stuck with Tess as a 'roommate' indefinitely. So the bastard didn't like being stuck all alone for years and years all by itself? Fine. Maybe after a few months with Tess it'd have a little chane of heart about whether it thought some peace and quiet were such a hardship for an eternity of intermittent body- _sharing_ with a _willing_ host. ...Not that Lex or Zatanna would ever consider letting it slither its way back into the helmet again, if either of them had any say on the matter.

Yes, giving Zatanna the helmet seemed the obvious best choice.

...so why was the old sorcerer acting like he was just _waiting_ to catch Lex in the biggest mistake of his life?

"Does it _look_ like I'm not the current owner of the Helmet of Fate?" Lex asked blandly, but very carefully, watching his opponent's reactions.

The man got a widening smile.

...That was not good.

"I see someone who is, perhaps, the current keeper of the Helmet of Fate," the old sorcerer said. "But no more than that." His eyes went sharp. "The _owner_ of the Helmet of Fate wears their badge of office with pride."

Lex stood very, very still.

The old man's eyes flicked down to the helmet in his left hand, to the bottle, and then back up to him again.

And then he _smiled._

Lex tried not to sweat as his thoughts went down in a landslide and he started to internally panic.

 _I didn't get him out of the helmet after all,_ was his first thought, but he'd not planned on that -- or, rather, he'd thought he'd planned around it. But, if 'owning' the Helmet of Fate meant _wearing_ it...

He hadn't known. Fuck it, he _hadn't known._

\--He couldn't give it to Zatanna.

...Hell, who was he kidding -- he couldn't give the damn thing to _anyone_. If he gave it to someone, Nabu's next move would be to suppress his new host, turn right around, and declare Lex's magic-user status open knowledge, and then share it. And then he'd be fucked. The bastard wanted him dead, dying, or under control, and he'd do anything to get it.

If he gave it to Zatanna... there was maybe, possibly, the smallest chance that Nabu had been sucked into the bottle with Tess. Maybe, just maybe, the old sorcerer had been bluffing, because Zatanna had said that no-one could sense the Helmet if they weren't touching it. It was magically neutral; no-one wanted the so-called Lord of Chaos to be able to track it down so easily, and that was what would happen if it shone out like a beacon.

If he gave it to Zatanna and Nabu was gone... that was game-set-match. If he wasn't...

...it would be Zatara all over again.

Presumably. The man had spent several months under. What if he couldn't take it? ...What if, this time, Nabu didn't agree to the trade?

...What if Nabu had hurt Zatara and he couldn't take up the helmet from her, regardless?

But if Lex kept it...

...if Nabu wasn't in it, would he be able to perform magic? Zatanna had said that Nabu had been able to use Kid Flash's body, despite it being nearly magic-null, but that had been a millienia-old ghost with vast magical knowledge beyond most people's ken. He might not have the same magic status... or maybe he would. Lex didn't know. He hadn't asked enough questions of Zatanna. Not the right ones; he hadn't thought to ask her, or Captain Marvel, about any such things.

To be honest, he hadn't really thought he'd manage to survive this far, with the way things had fallen out. He had no idea what to do next. He was playing it by ear, winging it, and he simply didn't have the experience, the memories, or the knowledge to back him up.

He swallowed hard.

If Nabu was still in the helmet -- the most-likely scenario, considering -- then if Lex put it on, he'd be subject to Nabu's whims. Nabu might simply take him over, content to hold Lex 'hostage' as it were, to have a body rather than find another and give Lex's over to Tess. After all, Lex had a sneaking suspicion that half the reason Fate had gone after him so hard was because of the 'great powers' he held within him. If Fate held _him_ , though, he'd have access to those supposed great powers, and maybe he wouldn't risk doing anything to Lex when it might jeopardize the inner workings holding them all together?

Or maybe Nabu would rip him apart from the inside out where no-one could see or hear him scream.

Zod had ripped his soul apart possessing him, after all. A not-so-empty Vessel.

So Lex thought, and he thought _hard_.

And then he said, "I would think that the deciding on a new Dr. Fate would be something not lightly undertaken--"

"Ah," the old sorcerer interrupted. "But where else would we find so very many competent magic-users from which to choose a new Lord of Order, than right here and now?" he said, spreading his arms and gesturing at everyone in attendance.

Lex felt the number of possible escapes shrink in on him, and tried not to shudder. The old man wasn't going to let him put it off; he wouldn't get the time to talk to anyone or catch his bearings...

Lex drew himself up, and turned slowly. He looked over the sea of faces to his right, then stopped and turned back -- he didn't want to risk showing the sorcerer his back; he didn't trust the man an inch.

He turned the other way, to his left, and finally, finally spotted Zatanna and the rest of the Young Justice members who were guests-in-attendance.

Zatanna looked anxious, and shook her head slightly, once, but it was a distinctive 'no'.

It was too bad that Lex didn't know her well enough to guess what that meant. _No to **what** , exactly?!_

He caught Conner's gaze and held it. The alien-hybrid was as stoic and seemingly-clam as ever.

The outer facade, the lack of affect, didn't really fool him. Unfortunately, Lex didn't know him well enough to hazard a guess as to his underlying thoughts, either.

Lex turned back to face the old sorcerer. He tried not to grimace as he brought the helmet up to hold it in both his hands, in front of him.

The old sorcerer smiled at him, looking triumphant.

Lex had to suppress another shudder.

He should just turn the damn thing over. It was the smart thing to do. It was probably the wise thing to do.

...But he didn't trust these people as far as he could throw them.

And he had promised Zatanna that he would only make things better, but never any worse.

Giving the Helmet over to some unknown was too much of a risk.

So he did the only thing he could do.

He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.

He raised the helmet up, and--

~*~*~*~*~*~

Zatanna watched in silence while Lex raised the helmet, as if to offer it up to them all.

And then she had to cover a shocked scream as he brought it back down over his own skull.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	10. And this is why Knowledge Is Power...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Zatanna found herself not having to worry about having disrupted the Conference -- the noise she had made had been more than swallowed up in the cacophony of sound that the rest of the members in attendance had made at Lex's action.

::Oh god, oh god, oh god,:: she thought in circles, watching as Lex shivered in place, then stilled. She watched as he squared his shoulders and slowly raised his head.

::We'll get him back, Conner!:: she faintly heard M'gann say so hurriedly down the mental party line that her thoughts were nearly tripping over themselves. ::Kaldur thinks he knows how Lex got Fate's helmet off, and we'll--::

"I think that this should simplify matters, don't you?" an echoing voice called out.

Silence fell. Like a guillotine blade.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"I am Dr. Fate," he said, "and I believe that I have won the Challenge."

He took a slow deep breath, in and out.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Oh my _god!_ " Zatanna choked, and she burst into tears -- she just couldn't help it, because--

"Uh, isn't Fate supposed to sound more _ringing_ echo-ey and less... muffle-y?" asked Wally, with the starts of a smile.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Yes," said the sorcerer, "I suppose that _does_ clear things up quite nicely."

Lex stared at the man, momentarily torn away from his worrying that Nabu really was still in the helmet and just lying in wait because of _reasons_ , or maybe just to fuck with him, because...

...shit, why was the old sorcerer _grinning at him?_

Lex paled.

"Dr. Fate has won the Challenge!" the old sorcerer called out, slamming his staff down on the floor.

And as he did so he met and held Lex's stare with a sharp-eyed, _expectant_ look.

 _...I think I might be in trouble,_ Lex realized.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Okay, so M'gann was hugging Conner, who was looking a little shell-shocked, and Artemis and Wally were just sagging with relief, but why were Dick and Kaldur'ahm looking worried? And why was Zatanna not looking more relieved and less confused?

Rocket glanced over at Captain Marvel, who looked like he'd just been told he needed to sit down on an anthill, or something.

::Uh, guys...?:: Rocket asked. ::What's wrong?::

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Congratulations," said the old sorcerer. "You have won the Challenge and the rights to a seat at the High Council is yours," he intoned.

There was a pause.

"Ah, thank you..." said Lex. "It is a... great honor." He hadn't exactly gone over any ceremonial bits like this with Zatanna -- asking what would happen if someone won a Challenge would have tipped her off as to the seriousness of his plans in that direction. He hadn't been sure she could keep it under wraps, or if she would even have continued to help him if she had known.

"It is also my duty as an agent of the Lords of Order to welcome you into the ranks, Dr. Fate," the sorcerer added, with a slight bow of the head.

Lex blinked. He returned the gesture. "I... look forward to working with you," he thought, mind racing, because were there some behind-the-scene politics that he had missed? He hadn't known that the old man was one of those 'Lords of Order' types, but then he hadn't managed to get a name or word out of him prior to the Challenge. Was it possible that the man was actually pleased with him for having defeated a rival within the same organization?

"However," the white-haired sorcerer said, "I must admit that I am surprised that you won the Challenge. I was not aware of your... _experience_ in the field of magic having improved so very quickly from when I last heard of it," he said, with a glint in his eye. "As such," he continued, "I, Ahri'ahn, High Mage of Atlantis and Sorcerer Supreme, claim the right to test your magical abilities by fair and open combat, to ensure that the ranks of the Lords of Order have and will continue to retain the best magic-users of this age."

...or maybe he was just looking for an easy way to climb the ladder of ambition. Lex suddenly felt ill.

"I would be happy to oblige, of course," Lex said, "but I did just finish one Challenge, and--"

"--our laws state that you do not need to respond to a Challenge again within the same session, yes," the older sorcerer waved off. "However, this is not a Challenge. This is more of a... rite of passage, to undergo," the man told him, with a truly evil glint in his eye. "And, as I expected that you would don the Helmet, once I saw your opponent downed--"

Lex gritted his teeth. _I've been played._

"--my colleague assured me earlier that you did not expend much magical energy at all during your fight within the barrier," the old sorcerer ended. Then, after a pause, he added, "Of course, if you would like a chance to catch your breath, then by all means -- let's call a short recess in the Conference and let you take, shall we say, a break of fifteen minutes or so? I understand you did quite a lot of running."

For a moment, Lex really, truly wished he _could_ cast a magic spell. He **direly** wanted to burn _every last person in the crowd who laughed at him_ down to ash.

He had to settle instead for clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white, nodding once, telling the sorcerer tersely through clenched teeth how _very_ gracious his offer was, thank you, and turning on his heel to march away. He all-but-stomped over to Zatanna and the rest of them, hoping that one of them would have even an _inkling_ of a idea of how the hell he might be able to manage to survive the next sixteen or seventeen minutes or so, and maybe even -- wonder of wonders -- be willing to share it with him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Bear with me please, I'm going to be fixing a few earlier chapters tonight, too.~~ Fixed a few character names from Chapter 6 onwards. Sorry about that. (I'm a bit mortified -- I was spelling peoples' names wrong! ^_^;; *headdesk* )
> 
> Yes, these are a little early. Nothing else will be going up before at least mid-week, though ...and then we hit the part that I will have real difficulty writing. o_O;;;; --Wish me luck! ;)
> 
>  
> 
>  **Author's note on ye olde sorcerer dude:** So, yeah, I'm remixing [Ahri'ahn / "Arion the Immortal"](http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Ahri%27ahn_\(New_Earth\)) from the DCU for this, since Earth-16 kinda skimps on the good sorcerers, but most of the ones that do exist in Earth-16 are Atlantean-based. In Ahri'ahn's earlier New-Earth incarnation, he was a Lord of Atlantis born to ancient Atlantean royalty, High Mage of Atlantis (since ancient times), an agent of the Lords of Order (yes, [_those_](http://youngjustice.wikia.com/wiki/Lord_of_Order) [Lords of Order](http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Lords_of_Order)), Sorcerer Supreme, "Intercessor of Darkworld" (he basically draws his nearly limitless power from an entirely different extra-dimensional magical realm), and general all-around BAMF; he does have white hair, but does not look totally ancient. (...why yes, I _am_ ignoring the newer pre-DCnU, post-Infinite-Crisis version of him that was a jerk to Superman, so kind of you to ask! ;)


	11. Preparations for Battle

~*~*~*~*~*~

"So," Lex said lowly. "On a scale of 'one' to 'just curl up in a corner and die already before you make things worse, you fool', how fucked am I, exactly?" he asked Zatanna.

Zatanna winced.

"That bad, hm?" said Lex bitterly.

Zatanna hunched her shoulders and got mad. "I can't believe you put on the stupid helmet!" Zatanna hissed at him. She didn't understand why was he so angry at her -- it wasn't _her_ fault he was in this mess!

"I can't believe the cloth actually worked!" Lex griped as he yanked the helmet off and glared at it, then narrowed his eyes at her. "You sounded very sure that it wouldn't." Then he blinked and frowned. "--It _did_ actually work, didn't it?" he asked her, eyeing the damn thing and now holding it gingerly, like he thought it would go rabid and **bite** him, any second now...

Zee started. "Were you _trying_ to get possessed by Nabu?" she demanded of him, staring.

"Of course not! Especially not after what happened with--" He clenched his teeth and tried very hard not to think of what he'd re-learned about Zod. "But I couldn't exactly think of a better alternative, either!" he ground out. "Just because I didn't know he wasn't going to immediately possess me doesn't mean--"

"You should've--" she started to yell, then clenched her jaw shut. "You should've just given it to somebody else!" she hissed at him under her breath.

"And risk him possessing someone else and never letting go of them? Bringing my status into question after the fact?" Lex scoffed. "What happens to a non-magic user who _pretends_ to be an experienced magic user and calls a false Challenge?" he said under his breath, leaning in towards her and glancing around as he did so.

The only people close enough to hear were the other members of Young Justice, but the thought still gave Zee the chills and had her wanting to glance around in paranoia, too.

"That's what I thought," Lex said quietly.

Zatanna frowned at him, because it wasn't as though that somehow magically made everything _okay_.

"Zatanna..." Lex tapped his fingers against the Helmet in a random-seeming pattern. "I know you can't tell directly with the Helmet--"

It took Zee a moment. "--Not without putting it on."

Lex grimaced and looked away, then firmly set the Helmet down onto the table in front of him. He then proceeded to untie the bag and bottle from his belt. He tossed the bag onto the table and thrust the bottle out at Zatanna. "Just... tell me -- am I oh-for-two, or...?" he said under his breath, gesturing at the Helmet then bottle, and trailing off.

Zatanna bit down on a terse reply as she caught his meaning, and instead placed her hands on either side of the bottle, murmured a " _ **Stnediser laever**_ " spell under her breath, and focused.

Lex was watching her hands with a frown, then glanced up at her.

She let out a slow breath. "0 for 2, yeah," she confirmed quietly, withdrawing her fingers, and watched him take in a breath and his shoulders sagged slightly.

He set the spirit-containing bottle down on the table in front of her and rubbed at the side of his head oddly with his fingers.

"Well, at least there's that," Lex muttered quietly.

"You could give it to one of us," Zatanna offered before really realizing what she was saying.

"The bottle?" Lex said with a sideways smile and a wicked glint in his eye. "I was planning to." He got a mischevious glinnt in his eye. "Think it would make a nice paperweight on a dusty old bookshelf somewhere in your home?" he asked, pushing it towards her slightly.

Zatanna started, then blushed slightly. "Um. Thanks?" she said, taking up the bottle and cord and attaching it to her waist right then and there. "But, actually, I meant the..." she nodded at the Helmet as she finished securing it to her own belt.

Both Kaldur and Lex gave her a look -- one long, one odd.

"I thought you said you were a Journeyman," Lex said. "Aren't only Master-level magicians and higher considered 'experienced' enough to...?"

Zatanna pulled a face. Lex wasn't one either, so in that sense it wouldn't have made much difference if it was one of them instead -- better, even, since she and Kaldur knew magic -- but she'd forgotten that the general Council of magic users didn't know any of that. Yet.

"Even if we could, we are both still under the protection of our status as observers, and only guests," Kaldur'ahm reminded them both. One or the other of them suddenly taking on the Helmet would cross that line, and equivalent to interrupting the proceedings; it would open up the entire team to possible punishment, given that they were all present at the moment.

"I'm open to suggestions," Lex told them.

"Well, why _not_ give it to somebody else?" Wally put out there, trying to be helpful as ever. "I mean, sure you weren't sure about whether it was free-and-clear _then_ , but now?"

Lex gave him a sour look. "If any of you know of an 'experienced' magic user, someone who you'd trust with whatever level of magical power this thing can bestow," he gestured at the Helmet, " _and_ with a High Council seat, _and_ who would not be likely to turn on us given the choice of taking a large bribe or under duress of imminent threat, I would **love** to hear it," he told them dourly. "They could start by explaining why they haven't been helping so far."

Zatanna winced, but she still began wracking her brain, trying to think of someone. Rocket, on the other hand, wanted to know: "What bribes or threats?"

"The threat is the 'rite of passage'," Artemis explained, having caught on pretty quickly. "Because if that guy's on the same High Council as Dr. Fate was, he's probably one of the heavy hitters, too."

"He is," said Zatanna. She'd never met the sorcerer before, or seen what he looked like, but she'd recognized the name once she'd heard it, and the titles were familiar.

"Right," said Artemis. "And whoever takes up the Helmet of Fate is gonna have to go through with this magic fight, right?" she said. "So the bribe would be going easy on them, or maybe even letting them off the hook entirely by saying that they're considered 'experienced' enough that maybe they don't _need_ to show it."

"And anyone who would be willing to take on that much risk for the power and influence they might gain is most likely the exact sort of individual that we would _not_ want sitting on the High Council," Lex added, rubbing his forehead.

Wally shifted from foot to foot. "Okay, so life sucks and we don't want you to die," he quipped. "Is there any way we _can_ help?" he asked, stepping forward, glancing between the three of them.

"I could use some water and a few towels," Lex said offhand, then blinked as Wally was there and gone and back again in seconds, holding out an armful of fluffy multicolored bath towels.

"Ah... thank you..." Lex said, taking the towels from him as he vanished and reappeared again and again with armful after armful of bottled water, most of which got set in front of Lex, but some of them ended up being directly handed to other members the group, too.

Lex seemed to weigh the towels in his hands for a moment, then plopped the towels down on the table nearby, picked up the nearest bottle of water, opened it, and promptly bent forward and upended the bottle over his skull. He reached blindly for a towel and wiped down his head and face, and sighed. He let the towel drop to the floor to soak up the puddle. The next bottle he opened and downed in one long gulp, and let out a breath of relief, blinking.

Then he proceeded to dump a good half a bottle of water into the helmet and squish it around, before taking a towel to the inside, cleaning it out. When he was done with that, he wet down another towel and then took it to the outside of the helmet, then repeated the procedure again for the inside of it.

"You've both been rather quiet," Lex told Conner and M'gann as he continued to clean the gritty remnants of the earlier salt dunking off of the Helmet. After a beat, he also glanced up at Dick, and then at Kaldur'ahm next.

"Telepathy," Kaldur offered, and Lex just nodded and let it be, dropping his head again and focusing on his cleaning.

"...Did it occur to you that maybe if you talked to the High Council right now...?" Dick began.

Lex glanced over his shoulder at the remaining three High Council members, congregated together at the far end of the large open area. "...that if I threw myself on their mercy they'd just let everything go as a simple misunderstanding?" Lex stifled a disbelieving snort, and turned his back on the High Council members again, facing the small group of Young Justice heroes that were, more or less, huddled around _him_. "I very much doubt that," he informed them.

"Why?" Rocket asked.

Lex finished rubbing down the outside of the Helmet. "I may not have many memories to work off of," Lex began, quietly, "But I do get... _feelings_ about things, sometimes, and in my experience those intuitions are oftentimes neither baseless nor wrong." He set the towel down. "And I do believe that man means to kill me," Lex said, in an even tone of voice not unlike one most people might use to discuss the weather, as he stared down at the Helmet and traced his fingers across the surface of it.

"Uh, you know I was _kidding_ about the dying thing earlier, right?" Wally said, looking a little taken aback.

Dick and Kaldur exchanged a glance.

"Death is not a normal outcome at these gatherings," Kaldur told him.

Zatanna shifted uneasily next to him as Lex met her gaze.

"And yet Fate was meaning to kill me, as a Justice League member, on League-controlled territory, when the League purportedly does not condone its members killing under any circumstances," Lex reminded them. "In point of fact, he wished soul-death upon me. And this Ahri'ahn seems positively delighted to have me stuck in an small enclosed space where he can fire magic at me indiscriminately and with no consequences." He turned his head slightly to glance at the three High Council members out of the corner of his eye. "This smacks of conspiracy to me." He turned away again and lightly placed both his hands down on top of the Helmet, palms flat and fingers splayed, curling around it. "Especially as I very much doubt that these High Council members do not know my magical status, or lack thereof."

"Lex--" Zatanna began.

"You said that you were experienced in magical politics," Lex said flatly, eyeing her sidelong. "You said that you told me of all the politics of the situation of which you knew."

"Ahri'ahn never comes to these things!" Zatanna said defensively. "Like, ever! The last time was something like sixty years ago!"

Lex set his jaw. "Did you know he was associated with the Lords of Order? That he is Atlantean?"

"Yes," Zatanna frowned.

Lex began to open his mouth, then closed it with an effort. He rolled his eyes skyward, and took a long, deep breath in, and then out.

"Zatanna," he said slowly. "Dr. Fate was planning to rip my soul out of me. He had to have talked the members of the High Council into convening earlier, _here_ , to manage this, or he would have had to abduct me out from under the League's supervision, since I am not allowed off of the satellite." He took in another breath in and out. "This means that he must have explained at least a few matters beforehand, and so the other High Council members were able to plan ahead, to be ready for this outcome as one of those possible, as Ahri'ahn implied just now." He clenched his jaw, then relaxed it with an effort again. "Queen Mera has a High Council seat, and Ahri'ahn does, as well. Ahri'ahn has a lower ranking than Dr. Fate, when it comes to these Lords of Order. In beating me, or otherwise discrediting Fate, I don't doubt that Ahri'ahn could rise in rank higher than an agent of the Lords of Order, and certainly lower the standing of the current Helmet-owner as well."

Zatanna blinked at him.

" _Further_ ," Lex grimaced, "depending on how things fell out, they could either have removed a voting member from the High Council -- if Dr. Fate was caught out at causing my soul-death, and hung in the court of popular opinion -- or ended up holding the Helmet in trust. If the latter, then Ahri'ahn would no doubt defer to his Queen in choosing the next owner of the Helmet. If Nabu had been present in the helmet, he would owe them a favor at the least for having pressed the issue of wearing it. With his removal, they can choose someone from their own ranks to take the High Council seat." He gave her a long look. "Either way, the Kingdom of Atlantis ends up with more influence on the High Council, either by the removal of one non-Atlantis member, or the substitution of another who owes their seat solely to Atlantis' forbearance and maneuverings."

Zatanna stared at him, speechless.

"If I was a paranoid man," Lex continued, "given how your helpfulness has played out to their best advantage thus far, I would think that you were working for them."

Zatanna swallowed hard, feeling a little ill as he eyed her.

"Luckily," Lex continued, lifting his eyes ceiling-ward, "I am not a paranoid man."

Zatanna smiled back weakly, mirroring his own.

"And I suppose that it was a bit unfair of me to assume that you would be able to predict the politics as an insider would, when you have not attended a Council session in-person before today," Lex continued, deflating with a slight sigh.

Zatanna winced, "Yeah, I guess it's different hearing about it than knowing what they'll do," she admitted. Then she glared up at him, "But it's not my fault that they're doing this to you."

"No, it is not," Lex quietly agreed. "And, to be brutally honest, I have no idea whether I would have done any differently if you had been able to warn me of this," he told her. "I can't think of a way around it."

"You could've asked more questions, maybe," Zatanna said. He'd figured out a lot from only a little information.

Lex glanced up at her again, soberly. "You misunderstand," Lex told her. "I deliberately did not ask you about the procedures after winning or losing a Challenge, or the specifics of what a High Council member can... 'get away with'... because I wanted to be sure that your reaction would not give anything away." He looked away. "Your father knows you. Neither of us knew how much of his memories and understanding were available to Nabu while he was possessing your father. If you had known, Nabu might have caught on to what I was going to attempt prior to the fact, and I wouldn't have been able to catch him off guard."

Zatanna stared at him.

"Are you telling me that your Plan A was to steal Fate's helmet?" she squeaked.

"No," Lex told her. "Plan A was to bring up soul-death and give him enough rope to hang himself. But, I didn't think that would work. The Challenge was my solid Plan B."

"You are an idiot," Zatanna informed him.

"But I'm an idiot who's still breathing," Lex pointed out with a small smile. He lost the smile in a grimace, though, as he picked up the Helmet and rotated it in his hands. "At least for a little while."

"Um," Dick spoke up. "I don't think that the High Council is your enemy...?" he trailed off at the look Lex gave him, then Kaldur'ahm.

"If you have something to say, then say it with your own mouth," Lex informed Kaldur dryly. "Don't ask other people to talk for you."

Dick stifled a wince, and Kaldur went still for a moment.

Then he said, "I do not believe that you would take what I have to say well, if I am the one to tell it to you."

"I'll take it less well than if you try to get someone else to bring it up indirectly instead, you can believe that," Lex told him, with something approaching a glare. "Better that you say it directly to my face." He eyed Kaldur. "Though if I were you, I'd really think twice before doing so," Lex warned him. "I'd rather you not have to worry about dividing your loyalties between the League's rules and Atlantis' best interest." That Lex would have to think about whether he could trust Kaldur to be helping to _his_ best advantage was left unsaid.

Kaldur'ahm's face took on the quality of a stone slab.

Lex watched him, then nodded once in understanding.

Wally glanced between them. "Um," he said. "Maybe he's kind of got a point, though?" When Lex looked over at him, he said, "Well, you're not dead... yet?" he shifted uncomfortably. "And they haven't said anything about the whole you-not-being-able-to-do-magic thing, right?" Wally brought up, glancing around shiftily as he whispered the 'no magic' bit so none of the other magicians could hear.

Lex just about scowled. "If the Atlantis delegation of the High Council only wanted the Helmet and didn't care about 'putting me in my place', one way or the other, the Queen's High Mage could just as easily led the conversation so that I would understand what was being offered and have the opportunity to take it," Lex told Wally sourly. "There were a thousand different ways that conversation could've played out," he said dryly, "starting with whether I could or should declare myself or Fate the winner of that Challenge. Ahri'ahn could have called that himself, outright, as the 'referee' to the Challenge, but instead he tried to give me enough rope to hang myself," Lex grimaced.

"Okay, but why wouldn't they just call you on it, now?" Wally said.

"...Because they still let the Challenge go through?" Artemis said, trying to think it out. "That would be kind of... egg on their face, right? They're not supposed to _allow_ that, right?"

"That could be," Lex said. "Having what amounts to be a second Challenge in public seems a bit unwise, however," Lex put out there, frowning. "As I understand it, Dr. Fate was known as a nearly unbeatable magician. I took him down without firing a single spell, and Ahri'ahn alluded to that in front of the entire Conference. That in and of itself might prompt a good number of spurious duels for the High Council seats of other members."

Lex pinched the bridge of his nose. "I would think that giving me a public beat-down and showing how someone with no real power available to them had been able to take a seat with guile and cunning instead of raw power would make the number and frequency of those fights more likely, not less. The only reason this second Challenge is happening is due to the technicality of 'Dr. Fate' holding two offices. It isn't as though that would happen to anyone holding another seat. Anyone else would only have to prepare for a fight with one magic-user, not two."

"...Maybe the old wizard dude just doesn't like you?" Wally offered.

Lex sighed and gave a half-shrug. "One way or the other, I miscalculated," he admitted. "Though with the politics of the situation, that may not have mattered. The outcome was likely decided before the Conference even began," he said dourly.

He turned back to Zatanna and said, "But back to the most-pressing matter at hand that I have to deal with: I don't suppose there's any possible way I could use the Helmet, or these... things in my hands," Lex said, setting down the Helmet momentarily and gesturing with his fingers to indicate his palms, "to my best advantage in a fight, is there? --Leaving aside the possible ill-effects using up the power of the latter might have on the current state of my soul," he added with a slight grimace. "I understand that Nabu was able to use Kid Flash's body when he didn't have any real magic power in him." It was more of a question than a statement.

Zatanna frowned at him. "Magic users generally manifest their powers at age thirteen, at the latest," she told him. "And Nabu's kind of a special case. Magic is, um, 'attached' to the body -- and everybody has at least a little in them -- but a person's soul needs to be able to connect to it and use it to cast spells. Magic users' bodies can collect magic in them, in a pool or internal reservoir. The more magic you have, the more and stronger spells you can cast. Magic-users can use energy outside themselves, but attaching to external sources of energy takes practice, and is harder and kind of risky, too. You also need to expend some of your own energy to do that, first," she explained, remembering what she'd researched in trying to figure out methods to deal with Nabu.

"The Helmet of Fate is different," Zatanna continued. "It's a conduit for Order... um, there's Chaos and Order energy; they're kind of opposites," she explained. "Nabu could cast magic when Kid Flash was... wearing him... because Nabu _is_ a soul with memories that can use magic, and the Helmet was supplying the energy. He couldn't do a _lot_ of magic, or very well, because he was basically trying to force a bunch of magic through Wally's body when his body wasn't meant to handle it, though."

"He's all right, though?" Lex asked Zatanna, then glanced up at Wally, as if realizing that that had been rude to say when the person in question was standing right there.

"Oh yeah, I checked him out after I heard about it," Zatanna waved off. "He's fine."

"Oh. Uh," Wally said softly. It was obvious that he hadn't realized that earlier. "Thanks, Zee?"

Zatanna smiled at him. Artemis just snorted and punched Wally in the shoulder.

Lex looked thoughtful for a few moments.

Then he asked, "What do you mean, 'generally manifest' at age thirteen. How many manifest sooner, or later?"

"Stronger magic users usually manifest their powers sooner, but not always," Zatanna told him. "Nobody manifests later."

Lex's head came up. "Why not?"

Zatanna blinked at him. "They just... _don't_ ," she said helplessly.

Lex suddenly looked interested. "But when you say thirteen, do you mean right on their birthday? Within twenty-four hours of the annual time and date? Sometime during that year?"

Zatanna balked slightly. "On their birthday," she told Lex.

"So, someone continually casts the magic-sensing spell on the lucky thirteen-year-old all-day?" he asked, looking intrigued.

"What? No!" Zatanna exclaimed. "That's just crazy!" Then she shook her head, realizing that of _course_ Lex wouldn't know -- magic-users just didn't talk about it outside the community, and even if he had somehow found out before at some point, he had retrograde amnesia. "There's a spell for magic."

"A spell for magic?" Lex's eyebrows went up.

Zatanna sighed. "It's not that big a deal," she said. "You just cast the spell, and try to cast something else, like a light spell. _**Thgli**_ ," she demonstrated, with a small light globe that popped into existence and floated just above her right palm. "Light spells are the easiest," she explained.

"What's the 'give me magic' spell?" Wally asked, eyeing her.

"Well, the most traditional one is: _**Magia, venit ad me!**_ " Zatanna recited, and reflexively handled the slight jump in inflow. "It's pretty hard to get wrong."

"'Magic, come to me'?" Lex smiled.

Wally stared at them both. " _Seriously?!_ " he said, sounding almost offended.

"Um, yeah," Zatanna said, not sure what the problem was. "It sort of pulls nearby ambient magic in and spikes your power levels temporarily," she explained.

"Do magicians use it often to boost their powers?" Lex asked, reaching a hand forward to poke a finger at the little ball of light she was cradling, following a meandering path over the 'surface' and then through the 'middle' of it.

"No," Zatanna told him, a little surprised by the question. "It's only good for a few seconds, and the spike isn't exactly neat," she explained. "It's kind of uncontrolled. You're pulling in a little bit from everything that's nearby."

"Uncontrolled and undirected," Lex murmured to himself, pulling his hand back from the light globe. "Interesting."

Zatanna frowned slightly, wondering what was going through Lex's head, and " _ **Tuo thgil**_ ," she murmured to reverse the self-contained spell.

"How much of your Earth's population are magic-users, then?" Lex asked, straightening.

"Um, not a lot?" Zatanna said. "Maybe a couple thousand? Only a hundred or so who are really strong at it?"

Lex frowned. "Ah, let me rephrase. What are the worldwide statistics for thirteen-years-olds that manifest using the spell?"

Zatanna stared at him, not really understanding the question. "Worldwide...?"

Lex stared right back. "If magic-users are known to exist here out in the open," he began, "and you have an easily-learnt and -cast set of spells that people can use, doesn't everyone use them once they hit age thirteen?"

Zatanna stood there and stared at Lex in shock.

"...We do that in Atlantis," Kaldur offered. "But magic is a natural part of one's life where I am from."

Zatanna looked over at him, blinking. She'd never knew that.

Lex glanced over at Kaldur. "Is thirteen the known age limit for manifesting magic in Atlantis?"

Kaldur looked at him evenly. "I would not know," he said. "Either someone learns magic or chooses not to explore its study. You could ask my Queen; she is the head of our school of sorcery in the capital."

Lex sighed again and waved the idea off. "Perhaps I am still asking the wrong questions," he told Zatanna. He paused, reordering his thoughts, then asked. "You said earlier that magic is driven by will..."

"Yes," said Zatanna.

"So both will and raw magical power are necessary to cast spells," he said, looking off into the middle distance.

"Yes. The will shapes how the spell works, and the magic drives it."

Lex nodded absently to himself. He looked at her and asked. "If someone is absolutely certain that they cannot cast, say, a fireball spell, will they be able to do it?"

Zatanna blinked. She took a few seconds to think that one through. "Um, probably not?" she said. "The spell wouldn't work right if they didn't want it to work."

Lex bit his lip absently, then said, "Not 'want', but 'belief'? What usually happens if someone wants a spell to work but doesn't believe it will?"

Zatanna screwed up her face. "It'll misfire, usually." Then she realized that he probably wouldn't know what that meant. "It'll either... well, _something_ might happen, but it won't be right, or nothing will happen."

"So, a partial-failure causes a partial-effect?" Lex asked, and Zatanna nodded. "And if they expect a complete failure," Lex asked, "do magic-users usually see anything happen at all?"

"...Probably nothing?" Zatanna said, thinking back on her own experiences.

"How much experience does it take before a magic-user can sense their own magical power reserves inside them?" Lex asked, jumping to a completely different odd-fact.

"It depends on the person. I can, but some magic users never do," Zatanna admitted, wondering where he was going with this.

The corners of Lex's mouth turned up ever-so-slightly. "Hmmm..."

Zatanna braced herself, because whenever he'd done that they day before when they'd been talking...

"So," Lex mused, "If a potential magic-user casts a spell on their thirteenth birthday -- for instance, the magic-calling spell -- and doesn't believe that it will work -- in fact, believes that nothing will happen -- and then _nothing happens_ \-- and that negative outcome firmly cements in their mind the idea that they cannot perform magic... Does that mean that they have no magic? ...or just that they have successfully convinced themselves that no spell that they cast will ever work?" Lex asked, all-innocence.

...it had meant trouble.

Zatanna blinked a couple times in confusion until what he'd said -- and what he'd implied -- sunk in, and then she _glared_ at him.

"You hurt my head," she said accusingly.

"I live to serve," Lex said with a wide grin.

"No you don't," Zatanna griped. "You live to give me headaches and be a _jerk!_ ...Sometimes," she amended.

"Only sometimes?" Lex asked.

Zatanna gave him another glare.

"Truthfully," Lex said, mock-mournfully, "I am not a sometimes-jerk." He paused. "I have it on good authority that I am a full-time jerk," he said piously.

"Well, go be a jerk at the other guy," Zatanna told him.

"I'd be happy to talk him into headaches bad enough to make him tap out," Lex said, suddenly serious and suppressing anger, "but I very much doubt he'll be in the listening _mood_."

Zatanna winced.

"You guys are kind of scaring me," Wally put out there, glancing between the two of them.

Lex glanced over at him, then took a deep breath in and out before giving him a half-hearted shrug.

"Apologies," Lex said more calmly. "I tend to get a bit testy when I... _think_ that people are wanting to kill me," he said, in deference to Kaldur's apparent belief to the contrary.

"Yeah, that happens to me, too," Artemis drawled laconically, elbowing Wally again.

Lex stared.

"...I feel for you," Lex said after a moment, and got a wry smile from Artemis in return.

"So..." Wally said. " _Is_ is possible that you could have magic?" he said, frowning. "--Not that I believe that the stuff's anything but science, or anything," he immediately disclaimed.

"If it _is_ science, I'm probably a lock for it," Lex offered. "I'm _good_ at science. But I can't remember that far back." He glanced over at Zatanna. "Does the magic-sensing spell only work when someone has actively been able to cast once before, or does it measure potential, or something else?" Lex asked her. "I know that last night when you were checking me that you said I tested negative for the general spell, but oddly and inconclusive for the more elaborate one. Has anyone ever been tested for magic using the spell before being able to cast successfully, shown up negative, and then been able to cast before they were thirteen?"

"I honestly don't know," Zatanna said. "I don't even know if they keep records of that stuff. I think it's unreliable if you cast it before somebody's manifested? I know that people usually only cast it when somebody claims to have magic."

"...Maybe it's worth a try?" Wally put out there.

"It might be if there's some chance that I could access the Helmet or the sigils in my hands," Lex said seriously.

"Dude, just try _without_ the Helmet, first," Wally pushed, "What have you got to lose?"

Lex gave him a long, considering look.

" _Magia, venit ad me! Thgil!_ " Lex announced all-at-once, very firmly, while holding his right palm up. Wally jumped.

They all stared at his palm.

Nothing.

Lex frowned. " _Magia, venit ad me! Thgil!_ " he said again. ...Nothing. " _Magia, venit ad me! Thgil!_ " Nothing. " _Magia, venit ad me! Magia, venit ad me! Magia, venit ad me! --Thgil!_ " Nothing.

They exchanged glanced for a moment.

"Feel any different?" Wally asked.

"No," said Lex. "Should I?"

Zatanna shrugged. "Some people do, if they've got powerful magic," she said without inflection.

" _Magia, venit ad me! Thgil!_ "

Still nothing.

"...I don't suppose you usually think of anything in particular when you cast that light spell?" Lex asked Zatanna.

"No," said Zee.

" _Magia, venit ad me! Thgil! Thgil!_ " Lex tried, focusing on his left hand this time.

"Does the hand movement matter?" Artemis asked, to contribute.

"No," Zatanna sighed.

"Well... drat," said Lex. "I was hoping for at least something," he muttered, frowning down at his hands as he flexed them.

"Dude. Of course it didn't work. Your voice didn't go echoey," Wally pointed out. "Magic spells are always echoey when people cast them."

Lex blinked. "Really?" He looked to Zatanna. "Is there a spell to make voices echo?"

"Um..." said Zatanna. "Maybe?"

"...Do you think that would help?" Artemis asked, only a little dubiously.

"Y'all are a little crazy," Rocket informed them all, crossing her arms and leaning against the table, as she watched this moving trainwreck-in-progress. "You know that, right?"

The four of them -- Lex, Wally, Zatanna, and Artemis -- looked over at Rocket for a moment. Then they all turned back to their Very Serious Conversation.

"Do you have to do something you make your voice echo when you speak a spell?" Lex asked.

"No, not really," Zatanna said. "I mean, I could just say 'Thgil!' without pushing any magic behind it..."

"Okay, your voice didn't echo that time," Wally pointed out to Zatanna. "And hey -- no ball of light!"

"Well, yeah," said Zatanna, rolling her eyes. "I was just saying the words, not _casting_ it."

"...You 'push' magic behind the words?" Lex said, the gears turning in his head. "Is that like... breathing from your diaphragm?" he asked very uncertainly.

"Oh. Kind of. --I mean, well, no," Zatanna said. "It's not like... breath control and breathing right. It's..." She trailed off, feeling frustrated. "I don't know how to explain it," she admitted.

"When did you first start using magic?" Lex asked, trying to come at it from another angle.

"Um. I actually can't remember," Zatanna blushed. "I was really, really young."

" _Ah_ ," said Lex. "Then you've probably never had to struggle with the basics, or can't remember what it's like." At her reaction, he added, "That's not a bad thing. It just means that it is understandable that you don't know what it is like to struggle with something simpler, so it would be more difficult for you to help with this sort of thing." He gave her a smirk. "Even if I did have magic and could pull off the spell."

"Yeah, well, you've got the Helmet. It was still worth a shot," Wally pointed out.

"Ah, well," Lex sighed. "What's the worst that could happen? Perhaps if I am truly desperate and actually have some deeply buried connection of magic, I might find the proper motivation during the fight to somehow connect to it and die on my feet?" Lex said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with a dark undertone that undercut the false cheer.

They were interrupted by the sound of the butt of a wooden staff being pounded against the floor three times.

"That's the three minute mark," Zatanna warned Lex, as the rest of the Conference-goers milled about expectantly, and a few trickled back into the area from wherever they'd wandered off to on-station.

Lex sighed. "Is there anything that you can think of that might allow me to use the sigils, even though it might be a bad idea? I'd rather worry about dealing with the aftermath of having survived this now, than not even have the chance for that later."

"That's really not a good idea," Zatanna told him, focusing on them nonetheless.

"Zatanna, I really have no other viable ideas for how to defend myself against--"

Zatanna suddenly cursed under her breath and grabbed his left hand.

Lex blinked.

"What the hell did you _do--!_ " she hissed at him. "This looks like it's got maybe half the power it did when I looked at it yesterday!"

Lex, looking confused, opened his mouth to protest... then slowly closed his mouth and went still.

"What--" Zatanna began.

"--What did it look like this morning?" Lex demanded of her, quietly.

Zatanna scowled at him. "I don't know. --Last night I was tired," she explained before Lex got on her case. "I have a lot of practice at keeping things out, not seeing them. I usually have to let down my guard to; it takes _effort_ **not** to. This morning I was well-rested, and I'd be half-blind from all the magical auras from everybody here for the Conference if I wasn't actively trying to ignore-- to _block out_ everything. So _what happened_."

"Why, what would it feel like for me to have used--?" He cut himself off abruptly, then informed her, "You are giving me a look that is scarily reminiscent of some of my doctors when they think I've done something stupid."

"No, really?" Zatanna said dryly. " **Talk.** "

Lex winced. "--I'm not sure what happened, or when," he told her. "But it might be... When I was working with the bottle, and the Helmet... I held it in my left hand. It felt... warm at one point, but I thought that was from the cloth I'd used to rub down the inside of it." He grimaced. "And I thought I hit it against the neck at one point when I was trying to 'shake' it... --it jarred my arm up to my elbow, but the bottle showed no signs of damage." He frowned. "I don't think..." He took another breath in and out. "I can't feel them. That likely wasn't..." He shook his head.

"Maybe Fate tried something when you were holding it and he was the one who activated the sigil?" Wally said. "Maybe it backfired? Literally? That's supposed to be the flame-y one, right?"

"Maybe..." Lex said very slowly. "How bad is it?" he asked Zatanna, pulling his hand back slowly and trying not to wince.

"I don't know," she muttered, looking him up and down.

Lex frowned. "But--"

"I'm not sure, okay?" she said anxiously. "I wasn't sure yesterday when I was looking at it how bad or not bad it was, and I'm even less sure today. Maybe. I think."

Lex thought for awhile.

"So... out of whatever probably-not-viable things that I can manage to think up in the next half-minute I have eft before stepping into the ring and certain doom... _definitely_ don't try to mess with the sigils?"

She gave him another 'well, duh' glare.

"Right," Lex said under his breath. "I'm starting to think that wishing for a friendly genie to give me the keys to the metal paperweight I just finished rubbing down looks like the best plan so far. Don't suppose you have one to spare?" he quipped dryly as he scooped up the Helmet of Fate.

Zatanna gave him a long look. "Do you want an angry ghost-wizard stuck in a bottle? Slightly-used?"

"Had one, totally overrated," Lex deadpanned. "What else you got?"

Zatanna gave him the hairy eyeball, and screwed up her face.

Then she levelled a finger at the open area where Ahri'ahn was waiting and said, abslutely seriously, "Just get over there and kick his ass already!"

Lex blinked at her.

Then he straightened, and unaccountably brightened.

And it was with a wry smirk and a glint in his eye that he said, "Yes, _ma'am_ ," and slid the Helmet of Fate back over his head.

He turned away and then jerked suddenly, slapping a hand over the back of his neck, and did a full-body shudder.

Zatanna heard him mutter what was probably a curse under his breath as he stalked over to the ring, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Water in the helmet?" Wally said.

"Or cold metal meets bare skin," Artemis snorted.

"Ouch." Wally shivered sympathetically. At Artemis' incredulous look. "--What? I had a bad haircut once in second grade. I can relate."

Zatanna frowned after him though, because for a moment, she'd almost thought...

She watched him, narrow-eyed, as he began flexing his fingers. He looked like he was trying out the incantations from before again -- only now with the Helmet on -- and he abruptly stopped again when he got caught up in the throes of another shivering jag.

Then Zatanna shook her head and rubbed at her eyes. She'd probably just imagined it before. Too much power floating around from all the Conference-goers. Worse, there was pretty much no hope that he could use the Helmet, after all -- not when he didn't have any magic of his own to connect to it.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	12. Ready or Not...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ugh! He must not have dried out the Helmet completely. That had felt like a shot of ice down his spine.

Lex grimaced and he rubbed at the back of his neck as he walked towards Ahri'ahn, but frowned when he brought his hand back in front of him and rubbed his fingers together. _Hm. No moisture. Weird._ Well, at least he didn't have gritty salt all over him anymore, though. He'd take a little water over that.

He took a deep breath in and out as he came to a stop in front of the High Mage of Atlantis. Zatanna's meaning aside, even words of encouragement spoken in joking seriousness had helped to lighten his mood considerably. _At least I'll go to my death with a smile on my face?_

He was probably unreasonably hopeful that there might actually be a chance of his having magic, or at least enough to use the Helmet. Even if his soul was more than thirteen years old, his body was technically made of clone parts and less than a year old. If getting the soul to connect to a body with magic was the part that had a time limit, Lex had a gut feeling that Nabu undoubtedly would not have been able to connect himself to a host body and channel the magic in the Helmet through whomever else if that was the case. Kid Flash had been over thirteen when he'd been used, after all, and had clearly not been a magic user. There had to be a way around it.

He hadn't brought it up, of course, because (1) he had no idea whether the magic community had any stance on clones, given that they were something that was a product of the realm of 'science' than magic, and (2) he didn't want to muddy the issue as to whether he actually deserved this body or not. Zatanna had obviously picked up -- and informed Lex himself -- about his old soul, but she also clearly had had no idea that his body was made up of clone parts. With any luck, the League members hadn't been able to make heads or tails of that bit of his medical readings before they'd had to delete them. ... _If_ they'd truly deleted them.

\--He was getting sidetracked. He needed to focus. Magic-battle now, clone-body-soul-problems later.

" _Magia, venit ad me,_ " he muttered under his breath, and felt another chill go down his spine. He shivered uncontrollably. " _Thgil._ "

Nothing happened though.

" _Magia, venit ad me. Thgil. Magia, venit ad me. Thgil. Magia, venit ad me--_ "

"Problem with your magic, boy?"

Lex looked up to Ahri'ahn's smiling visiage.

"Maybe having a few issues, trying to deal with something outside of your _experience?_ " the old white-haired man taunted.

Lex stifled a snarl.

"Perhaps someone did not inform you earlier," Lex said cooly, instead. "I'm from a different Earth. We do a great many things differently there."

"Do you now."

"Yes," said Lex, trying not to clench his teeth, as his fingers curled slowly into loose fists, because the mage had sounded totally unsurprised. Damnit. _For one thing, we don't have homicidal power-mad assholes like you running around, doing whatever the hell you want._ "And I believe that my idea of what 'experience' entails is a bit different from yours."

All true. Not a single lie uttered.

"Oh, you may speak truths, boy, but I'm not so old and stupid to think that you can't tell when a half-truth might be more dangerous than a well-placed lie," the man in blue robes told him, and Lex stiffened.

_Mindreader?_

"Hah! Hardly!" Ahri'ahn barked out a laugh, looking amused. "Just old enough to have seen it all, and then some."

Bullshit. The man didn't look a day over... sixty, maybe? How old could he possibly--?

"Over three-thousand. That good enough for you?"

Lex glowered at him, unamused and not believing it one bit.

"Where is your staff?" Lex asked next, trying to be civil, despite the circumstances into which he'd been maneuvered by these bastards.

"Not mine, actually," the mage told him. "It's a badge of station. I passed it off to the Queen, since she's serving as the Watcher this time. --Formal title for this idiocy. Think you'd call it a 'referee'?"

 _Great. The Queen decides when the match is over._ He supposed it was a false hope that the veiled mage might have served in that capacity.

"Oh, Ashante's much better at wards and displacement spells than Mera, if you can believe that," Ahri'ahn told him. "Besides, Mera's a little tapped out from extending the wards out the way she did for your Challenge." He eyed Lex. "You should thank her for that."

"Mm. You think so?" Lex said blandly. "Before or after we're through with this?"

Ahri'ahn grinned at him. "Oh, maybe now would be better. You might not be up for it after I'm done killing you."

Lex went perfectly still in shock. For a long moment, he couldn't actually believe that the man had openly _admitted_ \--

He started as the staff banged against the floor loudly enough to wake the dead.

"Oops, too late! Looks like we're going to begin," Ahri'ahn told him, slapping his hands together and rubbing them with dark glee. "Maybe next time!"

Lex felt his lips curl back from his teeth. Too bad the Helmet covered all of his face but a slit by his eyes. _'Next time', his--_

Lex shuddered again as his skin crawled for no obvious reason -- and then four dark walls suddenly sprang into being around him, curving around them at the edges of the open area. Lex turned his head slightly and glanced back and forth, but he couldn't see anything beyond them. He couldn't hear anything, either.

"There we are," said Ahri'ahn. "Completely cut off, and no distractions." He smiled, eyes tracking Lex.

"...I don't suppose we could talk this out," Lex tried through clenched teeth, as he backed up slowly.

"Nope." Ahri'ahn raised his hands, which began to glow.

"Didn't think so," Lex muttered darkly with a sinking feeling as his hackles rose at the sight.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the cliffy. More bad news: we are now at the Evil Fight Scene, which is gonna give me conniptions to write, I just know it. *frowns* --I also don't feel comfortable posting parts of this again until I get through writing the entire next chunk (the whole fight, and a bit after), due to reasons of plot. (Basically, I don't want to accidentally forget something / leave anything out, or otherwise trip over the various strings connected to my plotline(s).) And, uh, it may be awhile in coming, due to not only the aforementioned reasons, but also work-/school-related research deadlines. ...Well, at least you guys got a semi-long update before the break? ^_^;; *ducks and hides*
> 
> (EDIT: Okay. Right. I now have 2200+ words jotted down that describes the stuff that I need to write for the fight scene, start-to-finish. Not stuff _written_ \-- stuff **describing** the stuff I'm _going_ to write. Ffffff... *headdesk*)


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